The Delair Branch is a freight-only railway line in the United States. It runs from

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

Pennsauken, New Jersey Pennsauken Township is a township in Camden County, in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area in the U.S. state of New Jersey, and it is located outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which it borders directly on the Delaware River. As of the 202 ...

. For most of its length it runs parallel to the

Northeast Corridor The Northeast Corridor (NEC) is an electrified railroad line in the Northeast megalopolis of the United States. Owned primarily by Amtrak, it runs from Boston in the north to Washington, D.C., in the south, with major stops in Providence, Rhod ...

. It was originally part of the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad ( reporting mark PRR), legal name as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its ...

system and is now owned by

Conrail Shared Assets Operations Conrail Shared Assets Operations (CSAO) is the commonly used name for modern-day Conrail (reporting mark CRCX), an American railroad company. It operates three networks, the North Jersey, South Jersey/Philadelphia, and Detroit Shared Assets Are ...

History

The core of the Delair Branch is the Delair Bridge, which crosses the

Delaware River The Delaware River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and is the longest free-flowing (undammed) river in the Eastern United States. From the meeting of its branches in Hancock, New York, the river flows for a ...

between

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, and

, northwest of Camden. The bridge was built between 1895 and 1896 by the Delaware River Railroad and Bridge Company, a subsidiary of the

. The formal opening of the bridge occurred on April 19, 1896. The west end of the branch connected with the

Connecting Railway The Connecting Railway was a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad, incorporated to build a connection between the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad and the PRR in the city of Philadelphia. Construction and assembly Connecting Railway The PRR ...

, another Pennsylvania Railroad subsidiary, at Frankford Junction. That line is now part of the

through North Philadelphia. On the New Jersey side, the branch was extended east in 1897 to reach the

West Jersey and Seashore Railroad The West Jersey and Seashore Railroad (WJ&S) was a railway company in the U.S. state of New Jersey with a connection to Philadelphia. It was formed through the merger of several smaller roads in May 1896. At the end of 1925 it operated of road ...

at West Haddonfield and the

Pemberton Branch The Pemberton Branch is a railway line in the U.S. state of New Jersey. At its fullest extent it ran from Pavonia, near Camden, to Pemberton Township. The current line runs from a junction with the Atlantic City Line in Pennsauken Township to ...

at Pennsauken. The Pennsylvania Railroad merged the Delaware River Railroad and Bridge Company into the Penndel Company, a holding company, on January 1, 1954. Ownership remained there through the

Penn Central The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals, the Pennsylvania, New York Central and the ...

merger, and the line was conveyed to

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busine ...

in 1976 following the Penn Central bankruptcy. Ownership of the adjacent Northeast Corridor passed to

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

. In 1994, Conrail and Amtrak collaborated to make the southernmost track on the Northeast Corridor between Frankford Junction and the

Schuylkill River The Schuylkill River ( , ) is a river in eastern Pennsylvania. It flows for U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map(). accessed April 1, 2011. from Pottsville, Pennsylvania, Pottsville ...

freight-only. At the western end, Conrail built a new connection to the

Trenton Line The Trenton Line is a route of the SEPTA Regional Rail (commuter rail) system. The route serves the northeastern suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with service in Bucks County along the Delaware River to Trenton, New Jersey. Route Trenton ...

. Conrail extended the "Delair Branch" westward to cover this new "line." In the 1999 breakup of Conrail,

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of trac ...

obtained the Trenton Line, while the Delair Branch remained with

. Similar to the arrangement with Amtrak, the Conrail line shared the alignment between Frankford Junction and Pennsauken with

NJ Transit New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit or NJTransit and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey and portions of the states of New York and Pennsylvania. I ...

Atlantic City Line The Atlantic City Line (ACL) is a commuter rail line operated by NJ Transit (NJT) in the United States between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Atlantic City, New Jersey, operating along the corridor of the White Horse Pike. It runs over trackage ...

Notes

References

* * * * {{Williams-Philadelphia Conrail lines Railway lines in the United States Railway lines opened in 1896 Pennsylvania Railroad lines Rail infrastructure in New Jersey Rail infrastructure in Pennsylvania