[5] On August 21, 1871, the Valley Railroad Company was incorporated, with the intention of running trains from Cleveland to Akron, Middlebury, and Canton, rivaling the nearby Ohio and Erie Canal.

[5] In 1878, capitalists from Cleveland and New York chose to fund the project, on the condition that the railroad company increased its capital stock, and construction subsequently resumed.

[7] The Cleveland Night Express was discontinued by the 1960s, as competition from automobiles, trucks, and buses caused a major decline of both freight and passenger service on the division.

[7][9] The B&O's successor, the Chessie System, retained and upgraded the rails of the Valley Division to operate their daily ore trains between Cleveland and the steel mills in New Castle and Youngstown.

[7][10] In the early 1970s, the Midwest Railway Historical Foundation expressed interest in using the railroad line between Cleveland and Akron for weekend tourist excursion operations, with Grand Trunk Western steam locomotive No.

[7][8][11] The foundation attracted support from Siegfried Buerling of Hale Farm, the Western Reserve Historical Society, and lawyer and Cleveland County Fair director Henry Lukes.

[11] While the Chessie System was initially reluctant, the company's chairman, Cyrus Eaton, agreed to allow the foundation trackage rights for the division.

[11] In 1985, the Chessie System's successor, CSX, obtained permission to abandon the right-of-way in favor of an alternate route that ran to Cleveland, and the Cuyahoga Valley Line consequently went through a hiatus without excursions for two ensuing years.

It operates excursion trains, and in a partnership with the NPS, the railroad helps visitors access various parts of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.