The Jack A. Markell Trail is a 5.5-mile (8.9 km) long, shared-use rail trail/rail-with-trail that runs from New Castle Battery Park to the DuPont Environmental Education Center on the waterfront of Wilmington in Delaware, United States. The trail utilizes the abandoned right of way of 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 ...

, its abandoned spur to the Wilmington Airport and land in the Russel W. Peterson Urban Wildlife Refuge south of the Shellpot Branch railroad. It was built in 3 phases, and with two complementary projects, between 2010 and 2018. The trail connects with the Wilmington Riverwalk (which is sometimes grouped with this trail into one trail), the Peterson Refuge Boardwalk, and the Battery Park Trail. There are plans to connect it to the Newport River Trail and the Commons Boulevard Trail. The trail is named for former Governor

Jack Markell Jack Alan Markell (born November 26, 1960) is an American politician and diplomat. He had served the United States ambassador both to Italy and to San Marino. He had served as the United States ambassador to the Organisation for Economic Co-oper ...

. The trail serves as part of the

East Coast Greenway The East Coast Greenway is a pedestrian and bicycle route between Maine and Florida along the East Coast of the United States. The nonprofit East Coast Greenway Alliance was created in 1991 with the goal to use the entire route with off-road, s ...

and the

September 11th National Memorial Trail September 11th National Memorial Trail, also known as the 9/11 Trail, is a network of trails and roadways nearly long connecting the Flight 93 National Memorial, the Pentagon Memorial, and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. It is tribut ...

History

railroad

Most of the trail, between

New Castle, Delaware New Castle is a city in New Castle County, Delaware, United States. The city is located six miles (10 km) south of Wilmington, Delaware, Wilmington and is situated on the Delaware River. As of 2020, the city's population was 5,551. New Cast ...

and

Newport, Delaware Newport is a town in New Castle County, Delaware, United States. It is on the Christina River. It is best known for being the home of colonial inventor Oliver Evans. The population was 1,055 at the United States Census, 2010, 2010 census. Four li ...

, is built on the old right of way of the New Castle and Wilmington Railroad (NC&W). The NC&W railroad line was in use for over 100 years. It was chartered in 1839 to bridge the gap between the

(PW&B) and the PW&B-owned New Castle and Frenchtown Railroad (NC&F). The railroad was opened in 1852 and was operated and at least partially owned by the PW&B, which formally absorbed it on May 15, 1877. In 1881 it, along with the rest of the PW&B, became 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 ...

(PRR). In 1891 the NC&W was merged with the NC&F to form the Delaware Branch of the

Delaware Railroad The Delaware Railroad Company (DRC) was a railroad company that operated in the US state of Delaware from the mid-1850s until 1976, during which time it was the largest in the state. Its original main line began in Bear, Delaware and extended sout ...

, which was all part of the PW&B system within the PRR. It remained part of the PW&B system until that merged with the Baltimore and Potomac on November 1, 1902, to form the

Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad The Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad (PB&W) was a railroad that operated in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Washington, District of Columbia, the District of Columbia from 1902 until 1976. A key component of the Pennsylvania R ...

(PB&W). After the attack on

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Reci ...

, the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

took control of the then under-construction

New Castle County Airport Wilmington Airport (formerly known as New Castle Airport, New Castle County Airport, sometimes referred to as Wilmington-New Castle Airport, or to a lesser extent Wilmington/Philadelphia Regional Airport and Greater Wilmington Airport) is an ...

for military use and at this time the

Reading Railroad The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and freight transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states from 1924 until its acquisition by Conrail in 1976. Commonly called the Reading Railr ...

built a branch off of the NC&W track, from a point just north of the current New Jersey Turnpike/I-295, to the airport that served as a trolley and freight line. The NC&W track and the Airport Branch were part of the PB&W/PRR until 1968, when the PRR merged with the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected New York metropolitan area, gr ...

to form the

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

. In 1970, the Penn Central declared bankruptcy and on April 1, 1976, Penn Central transferred rail operations of its most viable railroads, including the old NC&W line, to the government-owned Consolidated Rail Corporation (

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 ...

). Part of the line, by then known as the New Castle Industrial Track, from

Farnhurst, Delaware Farnhurst is an unincorporated community in New Castle County, Delaware, United States. The site of two historic hospitals (one now gone) and a number of cemeteries, the community once had a post office, school, and rail station. Geography Farnhu ...

(where the line crossed US-13) to the Shellpot Secondary was shut down, along with the Airport Branch, on August 30, 1972. The tracks were removed by 1975. While a part of Conrail, the tracks south of Farnhurst were taken out of service in the late 1970's and abandoned in 1984. The "A" bridge over the

Christina River The Christina River is a tributary of the Delaware River, approximately 35 miles (56 km) long, in northern Delaware. It also flows through small areas of southeastern Pennsylvania and northeastern Maryland. Near its mouth, the river ...

was removed in 1987. The tracks south of Farnhurst were removed in the 1990's. The only remaining section of tracks from the old NC&W are the few hundred feet between the Shellpot Secondary and 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 ...

that makes up part of the West Wilmington Industrial Track.

Trail

By 2002 the line had come into the ownership of the state of Delaware where it was managed by the

Delaware Transit Corporation The Delaware Transit Corporation, operating as DART First State, is the only public transportation system that operates throughout the U.S. state of Delaware. DART First State provides local and inter-county bus service throughout the state and al ...

. In the 1990s Delaware and New Castle County started discussing the possibility of reusing the right of way for a multi-use trail between New Castle and Wilmington, and they later arranged for New Castle to lease it. In 2006, the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) developed a Statewide Rail-to-Trail and Rail with-Trail Master Facility Plan for potential bicycle and pedestrian use and the New Castle Industrial Track was one of eleven railroad corridors in Delaware that were identified and further evaluated for potential development for trails. In planning documents dating back to 2007 and other sources, it was called the New Castle Industrial Track Trail or just the Industrial Track Trail. In 2005, prior to construction of the Industrial Track Trail, DelDOT built an 1100-foot long trail called the Heritage Greenway Trail on a section of the right-of-way between Delaware Street/SR-273 and 8th Street in New Castle, a few feet away from the

New Castle Secondary The New Castle Secondary is an active railroad line in the U.S. state of Delaware operated by Norfolk Southern (NS). The line connects the Shellpot Branch (or Shellpot Secondary) and the Shellpot Industrial Track (Edgemoor Yard) in Wilmington, De ...

(NCS) railroad using federal Transportation Enhancement funding. It was later added to the Industrial Track Trail. The old junction between the Industrial Track and the NCS was used for the New Castle Italian Immigrant Memorial. Work on the trail began in 2010 with

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) (), nicknamed the Recovery Act, was a stimulus package enacted by the 111th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in February 2009. Developed in response to the G ...

funds. Phase I, from Delaware Street/SR-273 in New Castle to just beyond Boulden Boulevard in Farnhurst, including an at-grade crossing of Boulden, was completed in the summer of that year. New Castle County started work on Phase 2, a segment from I-295 to the Christina River, in 2012 and completed it prior to August of 2014. By August 2014, New Castle had built a trail crossing of Delaware Avenue to connect Phase 1 to the New Castle Heritage Trail. The gap between the first two phases was not built entirely on the NC&W right-of-way because just prior to 2009 the railroad underpass below the Delaware Turnpike/I-295, which was owned by the Delaware River and Bay Authority (DRBA), was filled in. The gap was closed by running the trail under N Dupont Highway/US-13 in the old rail/Baylor Boulevard underpass and along the NC&W right-of way to I-295. From there, DRBA built the trail along the south side of I-295 to the right-of-way of the old Airport Branch and along the Airport Branch right-of-way through the old rail underpass beneath I-295 (which had to be modified) and to the southern end of Phase 2. The US-13 underpass was modified in 2014-2015 when the bridges over it were replaced and the rest of the gap sections were built in 2014. A formal groundbreaking on Phase 3, a 1.5 mile section from the south side of the Chirstina River, across it and then parallel to the Shellpot Secondary to the DuPont Environmental Education Center was held in late 2016, at which time the trail name was changed from the Industrial Track Trail to the Jack A. Markell Trail. Work on Phase 3 began in 2017, years after a 2011 feasibility report for it was completed. The Shellpot Secondary originally had two sets of tracks, but one set was removed in the late 80's/early '90s. Planners wanted to use the right-of-way of the 2nd track for the trail, because it would not impact any Refuge or wetland resources and would be cheaper, but Norfolk Southern would not allow it. Work on Phase 3, and thus the last of the trail, was completed in September 2018.

Commons Boulevard Trail

In 2018, planning began on a trail to be built partially on the old Airport Branch right of way from a point where the Markell Trail stopped using it west to the Social Security Administration office at Creekwood Road and then along Basins Road/US-202/DE-141 and Commons Boulevard/DE-37 to Churchmans Road/DE-58. The first section, along and across Basins Road/US-202/DE-141 was completed in 2020 as part of a larger intersection project. The second section, built on the old railroad right-of-way to Creekway, opened in October of 2023.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jack A. Markell Trail Rail trails in Delaware Protected areas of New Castle County, Delaware National Recreation Trails in Delaware Geography of Delaware