System CSX Transportation Status Operational Track gauge 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) | Owner CSX Transportation Number of tracks 1-2 Terminis New Jersey, Philadelphia | |
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Type Freight rail and commuter rail Locale New Jersey and Pennsylvania Operator(s) CSX Transportation, SEPTA | ||
The Trenton Subdivision is a railroad line owned by CSX Transportation in the U.S. states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The line runs from Park Junction in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania northeast to Port Reading Junction in Manville, New Jersey along a former Reading Company line.
At its south end, near the Philadelphia Museum of Art at Park Junction, the Trenton Subdivision becomes the Philadelphia Subdivision; it meets the north end of the Harrisburg Subdivision a bit to the north. The north end of the Trenton Subdivision Port Reading Junction in Manville where the Conrail Lehigh Line (in the North Jersey Shared Assets Area) heads northeast and the Norfolk Southern Railway Lehigh Line heads west.
SEPTA Regional Rail's West Trenton Line uses the line from Oakford, Pennsylvania to Ewing, New Jersey. SEPTA's Fox Chase Line had also used the line from Newtown Junction to Cheltenham until 2005 when single-track service on the SEPTA line eliminated the need for usage of the freight track.
History
The southernmost piece of the Trenton Subdivision, from its south end across the Columbia Railroad Bridge to Belmont, opened in 1834 as part of the Main Line of Public Works. The Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road opened in 1839, including the current Trenton Subdivision from Belmont north to the junction with the Norfolk Southern Railway's Harrisburg Line near the Falls of the Schuylkill. A branch of the Reading from the Falls east to Nicetown and southeast to Port Richmond opened in 1842, now the Trenton Subdivision from the Falls to Nicetown. The line south of Belmont was sold to the Reading in 1851.
The portion of the Trenton Subdivision from Olney (near Tabor Road) northeast to Cheltenham (near Martins Mill Road) opened in 1876 as part of the Philadelphia, Newtown and New York Railroad. That same year, the North Pennsylvania Railroad and Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad opened a line from Jenkintown, Pennsylvania (on the NPRR main line) northeast to the Central Railroad of New Jersey near Bound Brook, New Jersey, including the entire Trenton Subdivision north of Oakford, Pennsylvania. A cutoff from Cheltenham northeast to Oakford opened in 1906 as the New York Short Line Railroad.
The line between Nicetown and Olney was built as a connection between the various lines.
All the above pieces became part of the Reading Company through leases and mergers, and part of Conrail in 1976. In the 1999 breakup of Conrail, the Trenton Subdivision was assigned to CSX Transportation.