Piedmont and Cumberland Railway

The West Virginia Central and Pittsburg Railway (WVC&P) was a railroad in West Virginia and Maryland operating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It had main lines radiating from Elkins, West Virginia in four principal directions: north to Cumberland, Maryland; west to Belington, WV; south to Huttonsville, WV; and east to Durbin, WV. Some of the routes were constructed through subsidiary companies, the Piedmont and Cumberland Railway and the Coal and Iron Railway.

West Virginia businessman Henry G. Davis founded the Potomac and Piedmont Coal and Railroad Company in 1866. In 1880 the company began to construct a rail line from a junction on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) near Bloomington, Maryland, south along the North Branch Potomac River. In 1881 the line reached coal fields near Elk Garden, WV, and Davis obtained new charters from the states of West Virginia and Maryland, renaming the company as WVC&P.

By 1884 the line reached Fairfax, WV and the location of the future town of Davis, WV. Davis became a center for logging, sawmills and leather tanning, and in the 1890s it was the starting point for the rapidly growing Davis Coal and Coke Company. In 1886 the WVC&P began construction north from the Bloomington junction (known as WVC Junction) toward Westernport, Maryland and Cumberland, using a newly created subsidiary, the Piedmont and Cumberland (P&C). The P&C reached Cumberland in July 1887. Connections with the B&O were established at Cumberland and Rawlings, Maryland.

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