The Pomeroy and Newark Railroad was a predecessor of the Pennsylvania Railroad in the U.S. states of Delaware and Pennsylvania. It connected Pomeroy, Pennsylvania to Newark, Delaware, and has mostly been abandoned.
The Pomeroy and Newark Railroad was the final step in a series of consolidations and a foreclosure. The earliest predecessors were the Delaware and Pennsylvania Railroad, incorporated February 1857 in Delaware, and the Pennsylvania and Delaware Railroad, incorporated August 1868 in Pennsylvania as the Doe Run and White Clay Creek Railroad, and renamed August 1870. The two companies completed a line from Pomeroy, on the Pennsylvania Railroad's Main Line, south to Newark and southeast to Delaware City on the Delaware Bay, in about 1873, and merged in May of that year to form the Pennsylvania and Delaware Railway. This company's property was sold at foreclosure in August 1879 to two new companies, the Pomeroy and State Line Railroad (incorporated February 1880 in Pennsylvania) and the Newark and Delaware City Railroad (incorporated April 1880 in Delaware). After the former sold the line southeast of Newark to the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B), which it crossed at Newark, in 1881, those two companies merged in December as the Pomeroy and Newark Railroad. It became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system, and in December 1917 the line was sold to the Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad, Pennsylvania subsidiary and successor to the PW&B. [1]
The last passenger trains ran over the line in September 1928, and abandonment for freight began in 1936. By the mid-1940s, it existed only at Newark and north of Chatham. [2] These segments would remain to the end of Penn Central Transportation in 1976, except for a 1960s truncation from Chatham to Doe Run,[ citation needed ] but Conrail only acquired the short stub at Newark. It did operate subsidized contract service on 3.7 miles (6.0 km) between Pomeroy and Buck Run, [3] [4] but this was discontinued in about 1980.[ citation needed ] Operation of the short piece at Newark, by then owned by Amtrak, went to the Norfolk Southern Railway in the 1999 breakup of Conrail.
Parts of the line have been re-purposed as trail. From the mainline in Newark to Hopkins Road in White Clay Creek State Park, the right-of-way is used for the Pomeroy and Newark rail trail, sometimes just called the Pomeroy Trail. After crossing into Pennsylvania, part of the right-of-way is used for parts of the Charlie Bailey and Penndel Trails in White Clay Creek Preserve. [5] In Landenberg, PA parts of the right of way are use for parts of the Mill Race Trail and the Landeberg Junction Trail. [6]
Ownership of the line between Newark and Delaware City also went to the Norfolk Southern. [7] The line is still used as far as the oil refinery west of Delaware City, [8] and the section of roadbed which once extended past the refinery to the waterfront is Delaware City was abandoned. It is now refinery property.
White Clay Creek is an 18.5-mile-long (29.8 km) tributary of the Christina River in southern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware in the United States. It is renowned for its scenic character and is largely federally protected.
The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, also known as the DL&W or Lackawanna Railroad, was a U.S. Class 1 railroad that connected Buffalo, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey, and by ferry with New York City, a distance of 395 miles (636 km). The railroad was incorporated in Pennsylvania in 1853, and created primarily to provide a means of transport of anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Northeast Pennsylvania to large coal markets in New York City. The railroad gradually expanded both east and west, and eventually linked Buffalo with New York City.
The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad in the Northeastern United States built predominantly to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Northeastern Pennsylvania to major consumer markets in Philadelphia, New York City, and elsewhere.
NJ Transit Rail Operations is the rail division of NJ Transit. It operates commuter rail service in New Jersey, with most service centered on transportation to and from New York City, Hoboken, and Newark. NJ Transit also operates rail service in Orange and Rockland counties in New York under contract to Metro-North Railroad. The commuter rail lines saw 57,179,000 riders in 2023, making it the third-busiest commuter railroad in North America and the longest commuter rail system in North America by route length.
The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central, Jersey Central Lines or New Jersey Central, was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of the Northeastern United States.
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 business as an asset management and network services provider in three Shared Assets Areas that were excluded from the division of its operations during its acquisition by CSX Corporation and the Norfolk Southern Railway.
The Delaware and Hudson Railway (D&H) is a railroad that operates in the Northeastern United States. In 1991, after more than 150 years as an independent railroad, the D&H was purchased by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP). CP, which would itself become part of Canadian Pacific Kansas City in 2023, operated D&H under its subsidiary Soo Line Corporation, which also operates Soo Line Railroad.
The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B) was an American railroad that operated independently from 1836 to 1881. Headquartered in Philadelphia, it was greatly enlarged in 1838 by the merger of four state-chartered railroads in three Mid-Atlantic states to create a single line between Philadelphia and Baltimore.
The Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, commonly called the Pan Handle Route, was a railroad that was part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system. Its common name came from its main line, which began at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, crossed the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia, and continued west to Bradford, Ohio, where it split into a northern line to Chicago and a southern one through Indianapolis, Indiana, to East St. Louis, Illinois.
The Conrail Lehigh Line is a railroad line in New Jersey that is part of Conrail Shared Assets Operations under the North Jersey Shared Assets Area division. The line runs from CP Port Reading Junction in Manville to Oak Island Yard in Newark. The line is double-track and signaled through its entire length. The line began operations in 1999 using former existing tracks from Manville to Newark that was once part of the original Lehigh Line which is still in existence and is owned and operated by Norfolk Southern 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.
The Lehigh Gorge Trail is a 26-mile (42 km) multi-use rail trail that winds along the valley of the Lehigh River Gorge from White Haven, to Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Much of the trail runs through the Lehigh Gorge State Park, and was originally developed into a railroad corridor after an extension of the Lehigh Canal was first built under the great push of Main Line of Public Works to connect the Delaware Valley to Pittsburgh.
The Queen Anne's Railroad was a railroad that ran between Love Point, Maryland, and Lewes, Delaware during the late 19th and early 20th Century. It connected to Baltimore via ferry across the Chesapeake Bay, to Cape May, New Jersey via a ferry across the Delaware Bay and to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware via another railroad. It was the last major railway built on Maryland's Eastern Shore. The rail line changed owners several times during its history. In the 20the century, the railway struggled to compete with the automobile and service was cutback. Over time, sections of the railroad were abandoned.
R.J. Corman Railroad/Pennsylvania Lines is a railroad in the R.J. Corman Railroad Group, operating a number of lines in central Pennsylvania. It primarily carries coal between mines and Norfolk Southern Railway connections at Cresson and Keating. The trackage was acquired from Conrail in 1996, when the latter company sold its "Clearfield Cluster"; Norfolk Southern acquired nearby Conrail lines in 1999. This is the longest R.J. Corman owned line, at over 300 miles in length.
The New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad was a railroad that owned and operated a line that ran down the spine of the Delmarva Peninsula from Delmar, Maryland to Cape Charles, Virginia and then by ferry to Norfolk, Virginia. It became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system.
The Lehigh Line is a railroad line in Central New Jersey, Northeastern Pennsylvania, and the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. It is owned and operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway. The line runs west from the vicinity of the Port of New York and New Jersey in Manville, New Jersey via Conrail's Lehigh Line to the southern end of Wyoming Valley's Coal Region in Lehigh Township, Pennsylvania.
The Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway, nicknamed Black Cinders & Ashes, was a railroad that ran 87 miles (140.0 km) from Claiborne, Maryland, to Ocean City, Maryland from 1894 to 1924. It included 15.6 miles (25.11 km) of sidings. It was chartered as the Baltimore and Eastern Shore Railroad in 1886, started construction in 1889 and began operation in 1890 after spending $2.356 million on construction.($2025=79,895,000) When it started operation it purchased the Wicomico & Pocomoke Railroad Company, merging it into its own operations. Over the following 100 years, it struggled to remain profitable, changed names and ownership several times and abandoned most of its rail line. The only portion that remains in service today is the 3.65-mile long Willards Industrial Track, the 0.65-mile Mardella Industrial Track and the 0.6-mile Mill Street Industrial Track - all in Salisbury, Maryland - operated by Delmarva Central Railroad on track owned by Norfolk Southern Railroad. Track, bridges and right-of-way remain across Delmarva and at least one portion has been turned into a rail trail.
Stoney Creek is a tributary of the Delaware River in southeast Delaware County in Pennsylvania, United States. The stream rises in Chester Township, and flows through City of Chester and Trainer, at times creating their border. It discharges at the Port of Chester on the northern perimeter of the Trainer Refinery and south of Stoney Creek Yard. Historically it has been known a Middle Run and Stoney Run.
The Wilmington and Northern Branch is a partially-abandoned railway line in the states of Delaware and Pennsylvania. It was constructed between 1869 and 1870 by the Wilmington and Reading Railroad, a predecessor of the Wilmington and Northern Railroad. At its fullest extent it connected Reading, Pennsylvania, with Wilmington, Delaware. The Philadelphia and Reading Railway leased the line in 1900. With the Reading Company's bankruptcy and the creation of Conrail in 1976 the line's ownership fragmented, and the section between Coatesville, Pennsylvania, and Birdsboro, Pennsylvania, has been abandoned.
The Delmarva Division is the set of railroads on the Delmarva Peninsula of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia that were part of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) through most of the 20th Century. The lines were built by several different companies and then eventually consolidated under the control of the PRR and later the Penn Central Railroad. Throughout the 20th Century some of the rail lines were abandoned and following the bankruptcy of Penn Central and break-up on Conrail ownership changed many times.
