The Pomeroy and Newark Railroad was a predecessor of the
Pennsylvania Railroad 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 sove ...
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 ...
to
Newark, Delaware
Newark ( )Not as in Newark, New Jersey. is a small city in New Castle County, Delaware, United States. It is located west-southwest of Wilmington. According to the 2010 Census, the population of the city is 31,454. Newark is home to the Uni ...
, and has mostly been abandoned.
History
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
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 inland ...
, 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
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.
[ Interstate Commerce Commission, 22 Val. Rep. 1]
Valuation Docket No. 928, The Pennsylvania Railroad Company et al.
(1929)
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.
[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 and the ...
in 1976, except for a 1960s truncation from Chatham to
Doe Run, but
Conrail 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, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada ...
, 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. 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