Rail line along PA. Turnpike

For the many years that I have traveled the PA Turnpike there is a rail line near Norristown PA. right where he Turnpike crosses the Schuylkill river. The line comes close and parallels the Turnpike for a short distance. What line is this and is this line still active? I have never seemed to see any activity except not too long ago when there was a long line of coil steel cars (i'm guessing in storage) on the line.

That line is the ex-PRR Trenton cutoff, now known as the NS Morrisville Line. It runs from Morrisville in Bucks County to the Coatesville area in Chester County and was once the PRR's "short cut" around Philadelphia. The line sees several trains each day between Morrisville and Earnest (just east of Norristown and the Schuylkill River bridge) where there is a connector to the ex-RDG, now Septa, Norristown line on which it runs for about a mile before crossing the river at Dekalb and connecting to the NS mainline to Reading just east of Abrams Yard. There is also a relatively new connector on the eastern end to the CSX line at Woodbourne which was built by Conrail . Once a high speed, electrified, double track freight line, it was single tracked back in the 80's. The portion that you mentioned which parallels the turnpike over the river sees very little traffic these days. There was a daily unit gondola train which ran between USS is Morrisville and Coatesville but I'm not sure it still runs.

glennk419 wrote:That line is the ex-PRR Trenton cutoff, now known as the NS Morrisville Line. It runs from Morrisville in Bucks County to the Coatesville area in Chester County and was once the PRR's "short cut" around Philadelphia. The line sees several trains each day between Morrisville and Earnest (just east of Norristown and the Schuylkill River bridge) where there is a connector to the ex-RDG, now Septa, Norristown line on which it runs for about a mile before crossing the river at Dekalb and connecting to the NS mainline to Reading just east of Abrams Yard. There is also a relatively new connector on the eastern end to the CSX line at Woodbourne which was built by Conrail . Once a high speed, electrified, double track freight line, it was single tracked back in the 80's. The portion that you mentioned which parallels the turnpike over the river sees very little traffic these days. There was a daily unit gondola train which ran between USS is Morrisville and Coatesville but I'm not sure it still runs.

Edit: I passed over the line on 9/14 while driving on Rt. 252 between Paoli and Chesterbrook and the rails were relatively shiny so the western end of the line is still obviously seeing some service.

just a little ways west of the bridge crossing the csx line there's a divergence (abandoned, track removed) that runs paralel to the line for a few miles, a tenth of a mile or so north of it, including several very large stone and brick arc bridges and viaducts. any idea what purpose this line served?

jtaeffner wrote:just a little ways west of the bridge crossing the csx line there's a divergence (abandoned, track removed) that runs paralel to the line for a few miles, a tenth of a mile or so north of it, including several very large stone and brick arc bridges and viaducts. any idea what purpose this line served?

That was the ROW for the ex-RDG Chester Valley Branch which ran from Bridgeport to Downingtown. The remains of the line now end at the turnpike and are used primarily for car storage.

glennk419 wrote: That was the ROW for the ex-RDG Chester Valley Branch which ran from Bridgeport to Downingtown. The remains of the line now end at the turnpike and are used primarily for car storage.

we are talking about just north of langhorne, right by the woodbourne septa station, right?

jtaeffner wrote:

glennk419 wrote: That was the ROW for the ex-RDG Chester Valley Branch which ran from Bridgeport to Downingtown. The remains of the line now end at the turnpike and are used primarily for car storage.

we are talking about just north of langhorne, right by the woodbourne septa station, right?

Whoops, sorry about that. The abandoned ROW that you're referring to was for the westbound track when the line was still double tracked. The two ROW's split in the vicinity of the Bristol Road overpass and remain separated to the area of LANG interlocking, with several bridges still intact along the way as you noted.

glennk419 wrote: Whoops, sorry about that.

no need for apologies. how many tracks was that line? it seams like all those bridges on the intact portion are wide enough for two.

Even earlier, it was the original double track line. The new Eastbound track, now the remaining single track, has half the grade of the older route.

The Trenton Cutoff was originally built a little before the PRR's "Low-Grade Line" program, and the realignment near Langhorne had to be made to reduce the grades to the low-grade standard.