Inch Worm Railroad

A couple of weeks ago I read an historical marker west of Fairfield, PA about the "Inch Worm Railroad" proposed by Thaddeus Stevens in the 1830's. Today this is the Western Maryland/CSX line west of Gettysburg to Hagerstown. I thought this was graded just before the Civil War and tracks weren't laid until after the war. Does the 1830's date refer to Stevens' proposal, or was work begun in the 1830's? Was the line graded all the way to Hagerstown from Gettysburg prior to the Civil War?

Grading began in 1836. It was known as the "Tapeworm," not the Inchworm; a clever play on words mocking not only its wriggling course, but the effects of its construction on the state. (Stevens was a prominent part of the Whig and Anti-Masonic coalition which turned the Commonwealth's canal-and-rail system into a gigantic pork and patronage boondoggle which nearly bankrupted the state, before being turned out at the end of 1838 in the "Buckshot War".) The grading had been finished about as far as Blue Ridge Summit, IIRC, when the coalition was turned out; parts of it were not reused by the WM and can still be seen today.

As an aside, several portions of the canal system that was built during the course of this project (boondoggle is a very nice word for the State Works project) never even saw an individual barge before closing. The system was an attempt to regain the initiative for Pennsylvania in response to New York's construction of the wildly successful Erie Canal. And yes, it was complete mess and a financial disaster due to the political forces mentioned before.