The Pomeroy and Newark Railroad was a predecessor of the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name 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. It was named ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

s of

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

and

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. It connected

Pomeroy, Pennsylvania Pomeroy is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sadsbury Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 401 at the 2010 census. It was once the northern terminus of the Pomeroy and Newark Railroad. Geography Pomeroy is ...

Newark, Delaware Newark ( )Not as in Newark, New Jersey. is a small city in New Castle County, Delaware, New Castle County, Delaware, United States. It is located west-southwest of Wilmington, Delaware, Wilmington. According to the 2010 United States Census, ...

, and has mostly been abandoned.

History

The Pomeroy and Newark Railroad was the final step in a series of consolidations and a

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan. Formally, a mortg ...

. 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

Main Line Mainline, ''Main line'', or ''Main Line'' may refer to: Transportation Railway * Main line (railway), the principal artery of a railway system * Main line railway preservation, the practice of operating preserved trains on an operational railw ...

, south to Newark and southeast to

Delaware City Delaware City is a city in New Castle County, Delaware, United States. The population was 1,695 at the 2010 census. It is a small port town on the eastern terminus of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and is the location of the Forts Ferry Cross ...

on the

Delaware Bay Delaware Bay is the estuary outlet of the Delaware River on the northeast seaboard of the United States. It is approximately in area, the bay's freshwater mixes for many miles with the saltwater of the Atlantic Ocean. The bay is bordered inlan ...

, 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 The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B) was an American railroad that operated independently from 1836 to 1881. It was formed in 1836 by the merger of four state-chartered railroads in three Middle Atlantic states to create a ...

(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

system, and in December 1917 the line was sold to the

Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad The Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad (PB&W) was a railroad that operated in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia in the 20th century, and was a key component of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) system. Its ...

, Pennsylvania subsidiary and successor to the PW&B.

Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminat ...

, 22 Val. Rep. 1
Valuation Docket No. 928, The Pennsylvania Railroad Company et al.
(1929) The last

passenger train A passenger train is a train used to transport people along a railroad line. These trains may consist of unpowered passenger railroad cars (also known as coaches or carriages) hauled by one or more locomotives, or may be self-propelled; self pr ...

s 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 Chatham may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Canada * Chatham Islands (British Columbia) * Chatham Sound, British Columbia * Chatham, New Brunswick, a former town, now a neighbourhood of Miramichi * Chatham (electoral district), New Brunswic ...

.Christopher T. Baer
PRR Chronology
(Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society), accessed December 2008 These segments would remain to the end of

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 Railroad ...

in 1976, except for a 1960s truncation from Chatham to Doe Run, but

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 busin ...

only acquired the short stub at Newark. It did operate subsidized contract service on between Pomeroy and Buck Run, but this was discontinued in about 1980. Operation of the short piece at Newark, by then owned by

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

, went to the

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31 ...

in the 1999 breakup of Conrail.

Pomeroy and Newark Rail Trail north of Main Street

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 A rail trail is a shared-use path on railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed, but may also share the right of way with active railways, light rail, or streetcar ...

, 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. In Landenberg, PA parts of the right of way are use for parts of the Mill Race Trail and the Landeberg Junction Trail. Ownership of the line between Newark and Delaware City also went to the Norfolk Southern. The line is still used as far as the oil refinery west of Delaware City, and the section of roadbed which once extended past the refinery to the waterfront is Delaware City was abandoned. It is now refinery property.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pomeroy Newark Railroad Transportation in Chester County, Pennsylvania Defunct Delaware railroads Defunct Pennsylvania railroads Transportation in New Castle County, Delaware Predecessors of the Pennsylvania Railroad Railway companies established in 1881 Railway companies disestablished in 1917 Rail trails in Delaware American companies established in 1881 1881 establishments in Delaware 1881 establishments in Pennsylvania 1917 disestablishments in Delaware 1917 disestablishments in Pennsylvania Closed railway lines in the United States