The South Side Extension of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) was a rail line that ran from its Market Street Branch at West Yard Junction, on the west side of Wilmington, Delaware, across the Christina River to serve industrial areas on the south side of Wilmington. Originally built by the Delaware Western Railroad and opened in 1872, it became a branch of the B&O when that railroad bought the Delaware Western to obtain charter rights across Delaware for its new main line to Philadelphia.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. It came into being mostly because the city of Baltimore wanted to compete with the newly constructed Erie Canal and another canal being proposed by Pennsylvania, which would have connected Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. At first this railroad was located entirely in the state of Maryland, with an original line built from the port of Baltimore west to Sandy Hook.
Wilmington is the largest and most populous city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It is at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine River, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley metropolitan area. Wilmington was named by Proprietor Thomas Penn after his friend Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, who was prime minister in the reign of George II of Great Britain.
The Christina River is a tributary of the Delaware River, approximately 35 miles (56 km) long, in northern Delaware in the United States, also flowing through small areas of southeastern Pennsylvania and northeastern Maryland. Near its mouth the river flows past downtown Wilmington, Delaware, forming the city's harbor for traffic on the Delaware River. The Port of Wilmington, opened in 1923 at the river's mouth, handles international cargo and trade.
Diverging at West Yard Junction, the South Side Extension turned southeast and crossed the Christina River on a swing bridge in the middle of the present Wilmington riverfront. It proceeded down the platted course of C Street to a wye at Bradford Street, and ran up the latter to Christiana Avenue, crossing and running parallel to the avenue as far as the Third Street bridge over the river. A long spur ran from the wye down C Street to the edge of Christiana Avenue. The B&O showed little interest in developing the South Side Extension, unlike the W&N, which aggressively expanded to serve industries in South Wilmington. It did operate a carfloat service from the Third Street dock at the end of the extension to serve industries on the north side of the river; the service began before 1888 and ended in 1903. An extension of the spur along C Street across Christiana Avenue to the Christiana River would have facilitated a carfloat connection to the Central Railroad of New Jersey, but the branch on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River was never completed. The tracks beyond the wye were largely removed or abandoned in the late 1920s, and the swing bridge was taken out of service around 1930 and removed in the late 1930s. The B&O arranged with the Reading to switch its remaining customers on the south side of the river, and continued to serve a few industries between West Yard Junction and the bridge.
A swing bridge is a movable bridge that has as its primary structural support a vertical locating pin and support ring, usually at or near to its center of gravity, about which the turning span can then pivot horizontally as shown in the animated illustration to the right. Small swing bridges as found over canals may be pivoted only at one end, opening as would a gate, but require substantial underground structure to support the pivot.
In railroad structures, and rail terminology, a wye or triangular junction is a triangular joining arrangement of three rail lines with a railroad switch at each corner connecting to each incoming line. A turning wye is a specific case.
The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central or Jersey Central Lines, was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It filed for bankruptcy three times; in 1939, 1947 and on March 22, 1967, the CNJ filed for bankruptcy for the final time. It foreshadowed the rest of New Jersey's railroads, but not by much. It then pulled out of Pennsylvania completely in 1972. While most of the passenger services, structures and equipment were picked up by the State of New Jersey, later NJ Transit, it was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of the northeastern United States. Only two of the railroad's steam locomotives were preserved: CNJ No. 592 & CNJ No. 113; the latter is the only one that is still operational.
