The Reading Division is a

rail line Rail terminology is a form of technical terminology. The difference between the American term ''railroad'' and the international term ''railway'' (used by the International Union of Railways and English-speaking countries outside the United Sta ...

owned and operated by the

Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad The Reading Blue Mountain and Northern Railroad , sometimes shortened to Reading and Northern Railroad, is a regional railroad in eastern Pennsylvania. Its headquarters is in Port Clinton. The RBMN provides freight service on of track. Its mainl ...

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 ...

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, ...

. The line runs from Reading, Pennsylvania north and east to Packerton, Pennsylvania along former Reading Company and

Central Railroad of New Jersey 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 was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of ...

lines. At its south end, it connects to the Norfolk Southern Railway's Reading Line; its east end is at Norfolk Southern's Lehigh Line which parallels the R&N's

Lehigh Division Lehigh may refer to: Places United States *Lehigh, Iowa *Lehigh, Kansas * Lehigh, Oklahoma *Lehigh, Barbour County, West Virginia *Lehigh, Wisconsin *Lehigh Acres, Florida * Lehigh Township (disambiguation) *Lehigh Valley, a region in eastern Pen ...

History

The piece from Reading north to

Port Clinton, Pennsylvania Port Clinton is a borough in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States. Located at the confluence of the Schuylkill and Little Schuylkill rivers, it was a port on the Schuylkill Canal and named after DeWitt Clinton. Geography According ...

was opened by the

Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road 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 calle ...

in 1842. At Port Clinton, it connected with the Little Schuylkill Navigation Railroad and Coal Company, opened in 1831 past Haucks, Pennsylvania to Tamanend, Pennsylvania (near Quakake, Pennsylvania). The piece from Haucks east to Nesquehoning Junction near

Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania Jim Thorpe is a borough and the county seat of Carbon County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is historically known as the burial site of Native American sports legend Jim Thorpe. Jim Thorpe is l ...

opened in 1870 as the Nesquehoning Railroad, and the final piece from Nesquehoning Junction southeast to Packerton Junction was part of the 1868 extension of the

Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad The Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad is a defunct railroad that operated in eastern Pennsylvania during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The company was a subsidiary of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N), but for much of its lifetim ...

. The line from Port Clinton to Haucks was part of the Reading Company, while from Haucks to Packerton was part of the

. The lines were taken over by Conrail in 1976, and the

bought them in 1990.Reading & Northern History

References

{{reflist Rail infrastructure in Pennsylvania Reading Company lines Central Railroad of New Jersey