Lehigh Valley Railroad Company Certificates of Capital Stock Shares, 1890s

The Lehigh Valley Railroad operated from 1846 to 1976. Its track gauge measured 4 feet 8 1/2 inches – the U.S. railroad standard gauge and its length was 1,362 miles. It adopted the name Route of the Black Diamond because of its original intent to transport anthracite coal in competition with the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. The LVRR originally was chartered in 1846 as the Delaware, Schuykill and Susquehanna Railroad to carry anthracite coal from Mauch Chunk to Easton, PA. On October 31, 1851, Asa Packer purchased a large amount of stock and commenced efforts to get additional stock subscriptions and a road construction. In September 1852, Robert H. Sayre was appointed chief engineer for construction of the railroad and in November 1852 Asa Packer submitted a proposition for constructing the railroad opposite from Mauch Chunk, where it would intersect the Beaver Meadows Railroad to the Delaware River at Easton, PA. From Easton it would intersect the New Jersey Central and the Belvidere Delaware Railroad. On January 7, 1853, the name of the company was changed to Lehigh Valley Railroad by an act of the Pennsylvania Assembly. The Lehigh Valley Railroad opened in 1855 as competition for the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. The railroad expanded rapidly through building and acquisition in the 1860s and 1870s reaching Buffalo in 1876 when it financed the Erie Railroad conversion from 6 ft. to standard gauge. The LVRR laid its own track to Buffalo by 1892. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad became a competitor. Its owner, Archibald A. McLeod had started with financial backing of J. P. Morgan and Anthony Drexel. The P & R railroad negotiated with LVRR which had a Great Lakes outlet for P & R anthracite as well as its own. The financial arrangement seemed to benefit both railroads but in 1892 P & R leased LVRR and CNJ railroads and this rapid expansion alarmed Morgan and Drexel and they withdrew support. The P & R lease with the LVRR was terminated in 1893. J. P. Morgan agreed to fund LVRR and moved the company headquarters from Philadelphia to New York and began rebuilding the railroad. Independent stockholders of the LVRR protested the diversion of money from dividends into physical plant.

The Panic of 1893 economic collapse began first with the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad collapse which was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing. This collection of stock certificates reflects the many individual stockholders of the LVRR. Many of the certificates were cashed in around 1898, no doubt in protest of J. P. Morgan’s management. The stockholders regained control in 1902 and several other railroads bought blocks of stock in the Lehigh Valley Railroad. By the 1920s the Pennsylvania Railroad had obtained a substantial interest in the Lehigh Valley Railroad and eventually gained complete control in the mid-1960s. By 1961 passenger service was discontinued and in 1973, the LVRR was absorbed into the Conrail system. The LVRR was known to be the first to utilize a new type of locomotive with a fourth set of flexible-beam drivers (invented by Baldwin Locomotive in 1842). This additional set of drivers provided more tractive force, allowing for better curve negotiation. A new engine, called the Consolidation (2-8-0) in honor of the Lehigh Valley Railroad became standard heavy freight engines for a quarter of a century.