The Delaware Extension was a

rail line Rail or rails may refer to: Rail transport *Rail transport and related matters *Railway track or railway lines, the running surface of a railway Arts and media Film *Rails (film), ''Rails'' (film), a 1929 Italian film by Mario Camerini *Rail ( ...

owned and operated by 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 ...

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 ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

. The line ran from Arsenal Interlocking in

West Philadelphia West Philadelphia, nicknamed West Philly, is a section of the city of Philadelphia. Although there are no officially defined boundaries, it is generally considered to reach from the western shore of the Schuylkill River, to City Avenue to the n ...

southeast, south, east and north to the intersection of Delaware Avenue (now Columbus Boulevard) and Dock Street. It met the

West Philadelphia Elevated The West Philadelphia Elevated, also known as the High Line or Philadelphia High Line, is a railroad viaduct in the western part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Now part of the Harrisburg Subdivision of CSX Transportation, the viaduct was buil ...

at Arsenal, crossed 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 ...

on the Arsenal Bridge, intersected with the Washington Avenue Branch, Girard Point Branch, Swanson Street Branch (twice), and Washington Avenue Branch again in

South Philadelphia South Philadelphia, nicknamed South Philly, is the section of Philadelphia bounded by South Street to the north, the Delaware River to the east and south, and the Schuylkill River to the west."." ''City of Philadelphia''. Retrieved November 8, ...

, and became the Delaware Avenue Branch at Dock Street.

Form CT1000, List of Stations and Sidings and Instructions for Making Reports to the Superintendent Car Service
/ref> The line from Arsenal to Greenwich Yard on 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 ...

is now part of

CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a 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 track, it is the lead ...

's Harrisburg Subdivision. From Greenwich Yard north to Dock Street, the line is owned by the

Philadelphia Belt Line Railroad The Philadelphia Belt Line Railroad owns a long railroad line running along the Delaware River waterfront in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was created in 1889 to allow any Philadelphia railroad to access the waterfront. The railroad, which does ...

and used by both CSX and the

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

under

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 ...

trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may c ...

History

Construction began on the first piece of the line, from Arsenal (then on the

West Chester and Philadelphia Railroad The West Chester & Philadelphia Railroad (WC&P) operated in the greater Philadelphia area from 1848 to 1881. It became the West Chester Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR). It has been operated as the Media/Wawa Line on the SEPTA system ...

) over the Arsenal Bridge to Washington Avenue west of 25th Street (then on the

Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B) was an American railroad, headquartered in Philadelphia, that operated in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland from 1836 to 1902. It was part of an 1838 merger of four state-chartered railr ...

's main line), in 1860. The PRR acquired

over the WC&P from their main line at Market Street south to Arsenal in exchange for building a second track to handle the increased traffic. The PRR also gained trackage rights over the PW&B and their leased Southwark Rail-Road to the foot of Washington Avenue at the

, and the line opened on January 27, 1862; the PW&B was allowed to use the Arsenal Bridge as part of the agreement. The PRR began using the new Junction Railroad rather than the WC&P on August 12, 1866. , June 2004 Edition The first extension, south on 25th Street to Long Lane (Point Breeze Avenue) and then southwest to the Philadelphia Gas Works at Point Breeze, opened on January 27, 1863. It was extended further south along 25th Street and east along the current

Schuylkill Expressway Schuylkill may refer to: Places * Schuylkill, Philadelphia, neighborhood in South Philadelphia * Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania * Schuylkill Expressway, a portion of Interstate 76 in the Philadelphia area * Schuylkill Gap, water gap through Blu ...

alignment to the

at Greenwich Point in March 1866, giving the PRR its own port. In July or August 1874, it was extended north along Delaware Avenue (Columbus Boulevard) to a new freight station at Dock Street, replacing the PRR's use of the City Railroad along Market Street. {{small, (95.9

KiB The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...

), March 2005 Edition The line passed to

Penn Central Transportation 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 ...

in 1968,

in 1976, and was assigned to

in 1999, becoming part of their Harrisburg Subdivision.

References

Pennsylvania Railroad lines Rail infrastructure in Pennsylvania 1862 establishments in Pennsylvania