The Neshaminy Line is a railway line in the states of

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, ...

and

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. It runs from a junction with the

SEPTA Main Line The SEPTA Main Line is the section of the SEPTA Regional Rail system from the Zoo Interlocking in West Philadelphia to Lansdale Station in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. The line is long, and serves all 13 SEPTA Regional Rail lines. Current servi ...

just north of to , just across the Delaware River. It was originally built in 1876 as part of the much longer

New York Branch The New York Branch or the Bound Brook Route was a railway line in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It was operated by the Reading Company and owned by two of its subsidiaries, the North Pennsylvania Railroad and the Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad. ...

, which continued north to Bound Brook, New Jersey. The electrified section between Jenkin and West Trenton was designated the Neshaminy Line and is now owned by

SEPTA The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) is a regional public transportation authority that operates bus, rapid transit, commuter rail, light rail, and electric trolleybus services for nearly 4 million people in five c ...

. It hosts the

West Trenton Line The West Trenton Line is a SEPTA Regional Rail service connecting Center City Philadelphia to the West Trenton section of Ewing Township, New Jersey. With around 12,000 riders every weekday, it is the third busiest line in the SEPTA Regional R ...

commuter rail service. The freight-only Trenton Subdivision runs parallel between and West Trenton.

History

The

North Pennsylvania Railroad The North Pennsylvania Railroad was a railroad company which served Philadelphia, Montgomery County, Bucks County and Northampton County in Pennsylvania. It was formed in 1852 and began operation in 1855. The Philadelphia and Reading Railway, ...

and the

Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad The National Railway or National Air Line Railroad was a planned railroad between New York City and Washington, D.C. in the United States around 1870. Part of it was eventually built from New York to Philadelphia by the Delaware and Bound Brook R ...

built the New York Branch to create an alternative route between

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, competing with the Pennsylvania Railroad. The line opened on May 1, 1876. The

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

, forerunner of the Reading Company, leased the Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad and North Pennsylvania Railroad on May 14, 1879. The Reading electrified the New York Branch between Jenkintown and West Trenton in 1931; electric trains began operating from the

Reading Terminal The Reading Terminal ( ) is a complex of buildings that includes the former Reading Company main station located in the Market East section of Center City in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It comprises the Reading Terminal Headho ...

on July 26, 1931. With the Reading's final bankruptcy and the creation of Conrail in 1976, the line was split. The electrified line between Jenkin and West Trenton was conveyed to

and designated the Neshaminy Line. Conrail's Trenton Line ran from Port Reading Junction to a junction with the

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 ...

in Philadelphia proper. This new subdivision included the New York Branch between the northern end at Port Reading Junction and West Trenton, shared operation with SEPTA between West Trenton and , a single parallel track between Woodbourne and Neshaminy Falls, and then three other former Reading lines: the

New York Short Line The New York Short Line was a railway line in Pennsylvania. It was operated by the Reading Company and built by the New York Short Line Railroad, a subsidiary. It was opened in 1906 to provide a more direct route between Philadelphia and New York ...

, the

Low Grade Branch Low or LOW or lows, may refer to: People * Low (surname), listing people surnamed Low Places * Low, Quebec, Canada * Low, Utah, United States * Lo Wu station (MTR code LOW), Hong Kong; a rail station * Salzburg Airport (ICAO airport code: LOW ...

, and the Richmond Branch. Diesel service north of West Trenton ended on August 1, 1981. The Conrail split in 1999 saw the Trenton Line pass to CSX Transportation, which renamed it the Trenton Subdivision. Growing congestion and the need to implement

positive train control Positive train control (PTC) is a family of automatic train protection systems deployed in the United States. Most of the United States' national rail network mileage has a form of PTC. These systems are generally designed to check that trains a ...

(PTC) led to SEPTA and CSX undertaking the West Trenton Separation Project in 2015. This project built a new third track between Woodbourne and , fully separating the Neshaminy Line and the Trenton Subdivision. SEPTA activated PTC on the West Trenton Line on October 24, 2016.

Notes

References

* * * * {{Williams-Philadelphia SEPTA Regional Rail lines Rail infrastructure in Pennsylvania Rail infrastructure in New Jersey