Branches connected to the South-West Pennsylvania Railway in Uniontown via Redstone Creek and to numerous coal mines.

The company was chartered by the Pennsylvania General Assembly as the Monongahela Valley Railroad in April 1867, with the right to construct a railroad connecting Pittsburgh to Waynesburg; it was renamed Pittsburgh, Virginia and Charleston Railway in February 1870.

The primary purpose of this acquisition was to allow the Pennsylvania to construct a southern bypass around the congestion of Pittsburgh, via a short connection to the Main Line near Turtle Creek.

[1] The line was extended to Monongahela in 1873,[2] and in 1874 the company began operating a steamboat beyond to Brownsville.

Trains began running into downtown Pittsburgh's Union Station in 1875, crossing the Monongahela on the Panhandle Bridge.

[3] The railroad was crossed by the O'Neil and Company Incline in West Elizabeth, Pennsylvania.