 The next year the piece from Middletown to Elizabethtown opened, and the line was completed in 1838 with the opening of the Elizabethtown Tunnel.The Pennsylvania Railroad Company was chartered by the Pennsylvania legislature on April 13, 1846 to build a private railroad line from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh.Construction began in 1847 and the first section opened from Harrisburg west to Lewistown on September 1, 1849 (including the original Rockville Bridge across the Susquehanna River).