RDG Chester Valley Branch - Phoenixville Branch

This photo shows hopper cars at the quarry off of RT 29 in Devault in 1951 on the RDG Phoenixville Branch:

http://www.historicaerials.com/aerials. ... &year=1951

But this web site implies (with some ICC info) the line was abandoned from Swedsford Rd to Devault in 1941:

http://www.abandonedrails.com/Phoenixville_Branch

SO was the line abandoned, and the Quarry supported by the PRR? It doesn't look that way from the aerial shot.

Also, what was at Swedsford Road to allow that portion from Cedar Hollow Station to remain intact?

Robert's post at that site rather confuses the matter.

The Phoenixville Branch was PRR, period. The westernmost line shown on abandonedrails was the original main track of the branch. You can see a spur coming off just south of the Turnpike underpass, which splits into a western spur to an industrial park and an eastern spur which passes a lake to the south and then runs south to Cedar Hollow Station on the Chester Valley Branch. The western spur and a part of the eastern spur were PRR; most of the eastern spur was the Cedar Hollow Branch of the Reading. (They meet at the lake, the former Cedar Hollow quarry. In earlier times, the successive quarry companies might have operated their own in-plant railroad over part of that trackage.)

The abandonment in 1941 (formal; the tracks had been unused since before 1933) was of the original Phoenixville Branch main track, from a point a little to the west of where the spurs come off at Devault to Swedesford Road. Therefore, both PRR and Reading would still have been able to switch Cedar Hollow quarry afterwards. The line to Swedesford Road stayed in to switch Chester Valley Lime & Stone, later Foote Mineral.

The Phoenixville Branch was charted as the West chester Valley Railroad , It went from Phoenixville to Frazier where the passenger transferred to the main line trains.
In the 1880's when the PRR was pushing up through the Schuylkill Valley they took over this line. I have seen News articals in the Evening Phoenix on this from the 1880's. The PRR built a Wye track at Phoenixville for this line , so trains from Reading or Philadelphia could go out this line with out running around the train.
On a clear day I'll see if I can get some 35mm photo's of the old Wye road bed.

Len.

Here's a 1906 topo map that shows the PRR Phoenixville wye.

http://historical.mytopo.com/getImage.a ... g&state=PA