Lake Shore Railway Co. - Railroad Stock Certificate

PMG Graded Unissued Stock, 63 EPQ Choice Uncirculated. The Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Railroad (CP&A), also known informally as the Cleveland and Erie Railroad, the Cleveland and Buffalo Railroad, and the Lake Shore Railroad, was a railway which ran from Cleveland, Ohio, to the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. Founded in 1848, the line opened in 1852. The railroad completed the rail link between Buffalo, New York, and Chicago, Illinois.

One of the most profitable railroad lines in the United States in the 1860s, the CP&A was renamed the Lake Shore Railway in 1868. It merged with the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad in 1869 to form the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad. The CP&A engaged in a two-year wave of consolidations after the Civil War which led to the founding of the Lake Shore and Southern Michigan Railroad. The first of these occurred on October 8, 1867, when the CP&A leased the Cleveland and Toledo Railroad.

The CP&A changed its name to the Lake Shore Railway on June 17, 1868, and on February 11, 1869, the Cleveland and Toledo merged into the Lake Shore Railway. On April 6, 1869, the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad and the Lake Shore Railway merged to form the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway (LS&MS). This was followed on August 1, 1869, by the merger of the Buffalo and Erie Railroad into the LS&MS. The merger placed the line from Chicago to Buffalo under the control of a single company for the first time. The LS&MS adopted the standard gauge of 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) over the entire length of its road between 1877 and 1879. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland,_Painesville_and_Ashtabula_Railroad_(1848%E2%80%931869)

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