The Port of Chester is an American

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manch ...

on the west bank of 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 ...

Delaware County, Pennsylvania Delaware County, colloquially referred to as Delco, is a County (United States), county in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. With a population of 576,830 as of the 2020 census, it is the List of counties in Pennsylv ...

. Centered around

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

it ranges into Marcus Hook to the south and Eddystone to the north. It is part of the

Delaware Valley The Philadelphia metropolitan area, also known as Greater Philadelphia and informally called the Delaware Valley, the Philadelphia tri-state area, and locally and colloquially Philly–Jersey–Delaware, is a major metropolitan area in the Nor ...

port complex and lies between the Port of Wilmington and the

Port of Philadelphia The port of Philadelphia is located on the Delaware River in Philadelphia in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. ''Port of Philadelphia'' generally refers to the publicly owned marine terminals located within Philadelphia city limits along the west b ...

. Traditionally, shipbuilding and later automobile assembly were the mainstays of the port. It has since given way to other manufacturing and recreational activities, with Penn Terminals the only traditional maritime facility.

History

* William Penn Landing Site is near the confluence of Chester Creek and the Delaware River. * Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Company - The United States' biggest post-Civil War shipyard was founded by the Sun Oil Company in 1917 as a private shipyard for production of oil tankers. During the period between the First and Second World Wars, when many other yards were shut down due to a surplus in vessels and the Great Depression, Sun maintained its building pace as the US began to move away from coal as the main source of fuel for ships, powerplants and machinery and into oil. It closed in 1990. The US Navy has named ships

USS Chester Two ships of the United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacemen ...

in honor of the port. * Chester Waterside Station of the Philadelphia Electric Company * Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works and later Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation Chester shipyard, which had been in existence since 1859 and built close to 350 ships during the course of its history. It was sold to the

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational corporation, multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. T ...

and became a factory motor vehicles called Chester Assembly, which opened in 1927 and closed in 1961. * Chester Rolling Mill * Eddystone Arsenal (a division of

Baldwin Locomotive Works The Baldwin Locomotive Works (BLW) was an American manufacturer of railway locomotives from 1825 to 1951. Originally located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it moved to nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania, Eddystone in the early 20th century. The com ...

) * Wade Dump, a former industrial site

Location and access

The waterfront is part of the

port complex. It is located on the west bank of Delaware River in

, Eddystone and Ridley Park. It is upstream of the Trainer Refinery and downstream of

Philadelphia International Airport Philadelphia International Airport is the primary international airport serving Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It served 30.8 million passengers annually in 2024, making it the busiest airport in Pennsylvania and the 21st-busies ...

. Stoney Creek, Chester Creek, Ridley Creek,

Crum Creek Crum Creek (from the Dutch, meaning "crooked creek") is a creek in Delaware County and Chester County, Pennsylvania, flowing approximately , generally in a southward direction and draining into the Delaware River in Eddystone, Pennsylvania. ...

and Darby Creek mouth along the shore.

Shipping channel

In the "project of 1885" the U.S. government undertook systematically the formation of a

shipping channel In physical geography and hydrology, a channel is a landform on which a relatively narrow body of water is situated, such as a river, river delta or strait. While ''channel'' typically refers to a natural formation, the cognate term ''canal'' de ...

wide from Philadelphia to deep water in

Delaware Bay Delaware Bay is the estuary outlet of the Delaware River on the northeast seaboard of the United States, lying between the states of Delaware and New Jersey. It is approximately in area, the bay's freshwater mixes for many miles with the saltw ...

. The River and Harbor Act of 1899 provided for a channel wide from Philadelphia to the deep water of the bay. Since 1941, the Delaware River Main Channel was maintained at a depth of . A 102.5-mile stretch of this federal navigation channel, from

and Port of Camden to the mouth of the Delaware Bay, was deepened to , which was completed in 2017.U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Delaware River Main Channel Deepening Project
'. (May 2012). Retrieved July 14, 2013.

Navigational aids

The Marcus Hook Range Lights are range lights downstream of the port; Tinicum Island Range Lights are upstream of it. Additional

navigational aid A navigational aid (NAVAID), also known as aid to navigation (ATON), is any sort of signal, markers or guidance equipment which aids the traveler in navigation, usually nautical or aviation travel. Common types of such aids include lighthouses, ...

s are located along the shore.

Roads

Pennsylvania Route 291 parallels the river and is known as the Industrial Heritage Highway. The Commodore Barry Bridge carries

U.S. Route 322 U.S. Route 322 (US 322) is a , east–west United States Highway, traversing Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The road is a spur route, spur of U.S. Route 22, US 22 and one of the original highways from 1926. A portion of it at one time was c ...

. U.S. Route 13 also runs through Chester.

Interstate 95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, north to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the ...

and

Interstate 476 Interstate 476 (I-476) is a auxiliary Interstate Highway of I-76 in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The highway runs from I-95 near Chester north to I-81 near Scranton, serving as the primary north–south Interstate corridor through ea ...

are nearby and intersect at Crum Lynne.

Rail service

Rail service to the port is within

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 ...

's South Jersey/Philadelphia Shared Assets Area, based at

Pavonia Yard Pavonia Yard is a Conrail Shared Assets Operations (CSAO) rail yard in Camden, New Jersey. The yard begins just north of where the Vineland Secondary tracks cross the Cooper River near the intersection of State and Federal Streets, and continu ...

over Delair Bridge, the most downstream railroad bridge, crossing the Delaware at

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 ...

. The Stoney Creek Secondary parallels the port and has on site spurs.

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 ...

(with connecting

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three Transcontinental railroad, transcontine ...

service) and

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 ...

Philadelphia Subdivision The Philadelphia Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. states of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. The line runs from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, southwest to Baltimore, Maryland, along a forme ...

are also active. The

Wilmington/Newark Line The Wilmington/Newark Line is a route of the SEPTA Regional Rail commuter rail system in the Philadelphia area. The line serves southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware, with stations in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, Wilmington, Delaware, and ...

, originally built by 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 ...

, is a

commuter rail Commuter rail or suburban rail is a Passenger train, passenger rail service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting Commuting, commuters to a Central business district, central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter town ...

line is one of the 13 lines in SEPTA's

SEPTA Regional Rail The SEPTA Regional Rail system is a commuter rail network owned by SEPTA and serving the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The system has 13 branches and more than 150 active stations in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, its suburbs and satellite town ...

network.

Facilities

Maritime, water, energy and industrial

*DELCORA (Delaware County Regional Water Authority)

wastewater Wastewater (or waste water) is water generated after the use of freshwater, raw water, drinking water or saline water in a variety of deliberate applications or processes. Another definition of wastewater is "Used water from any combination of do ...

treatment facility *

Reworld Reworld, formerly Covanta (legal name; Reworld Holding Corporation), is a private energy-from-waste and industrial waste management services company headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey. Most of its revenue comes from operating incineratio ...

Delaware Valley Resource Recovery Facility * Evonik Degussa *GWSI Warehousng *River Bridge Industrial Center *

Kimberly-Clark Kimberly-Clark Corporation is an American multinational consumer goods and personal care corporation that produces mostly paper-based consumer products. The company manufactures sanitary paper products and surgical & medical instruments. Kimb ...

*Chester Water Authority *Penn Terminals 80 Acres (32 hectares) * Barry Callebaut *

Exelon Exelon Corporation is an American public utility headquartered in Chicago, and incorporated in Pennsylvania. Exelon is the largest electric parent company in the United States by revenue and is the largest regulated electric utility in the Uni ...

Eddystone Generating Station *

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

(formerly

Boeing Rotorcraft Systems Boeing Rotorcraft Systems (formerly Boeing Helicopters and before that Boeing Vertol) is the former name of an American aircraft manufacturer, now known as Vertical Lift division of Boeing Defense, Space & Security. The headquarters and main r ...

, now part of

Boeing Defense, Space & Security Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS) is a division of Boeing, the Boeing Company based in Arlington, Virginia, near Washington, D.C. The division builds military Military aircraft, airplanes, Military helicopter, rotorcraft, and Missile, missil ...

)

Commercial, tourism and recreation

*Wharf at Rivertown *

Subaru Park Subaru Park is a soccer-specific stadium in Chester, Pennsylvania, located next to Commodore Barry Bridge on the waterfront along the Delaware River. The venue is home to the Philadelphia Union of Major League Soccer. Subaru Park was designed ...

is an American

soccer-specific stadium A soccer-specific stadium, mainly in the United States and Canada, is a sports stadium either purpose-built or fundamentally redesigned for soccer and whose primary function is to host soccer matches, as opposed to a multi-purpose stadium whic ...

is home to the

Philadelphia Union The Philadelphia Union are an American professional soccer club based in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference. Founded on February 28, 2008, the Union began ...

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a professional Association football, soccer league in North America and the highest level of the United States soccer league system. It comprises 30 teams, with 27 in the United States and 3 in Canada, and is sanc ...

. The project is the result of combined commitments of $30 million from Delaware County and $47 million from the Commonwealth of

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 ...

. Talen Energy is the stadium's naming rights sponsor. * Harrah's Philadelphia was built on the site of the Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Company. *

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 ...

runs along the shore.

Gallery

File:Chester Waterside Station Machine Shop.jpg, Chester Waterside Station Machine Shop now Philadelphia Union File:PPL Park before Independence Playoff Game 2010.jpg, Subaru Park File:Harrahschesterfront.jpg, Harrahs Philadelphia File:Eddystone PA factory.JPG, Eddystone Rifle Factory File:MH-47.Chinook.jpg, MH-47.Chinook produced at Boeing

References

{{Chester, Pennsylvania Chester, Pennsylvania Delaware River C Redeveloped ports and waterfronts in the United States

Container terminals