page_title: Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad
section_title: Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad
hierarchical_section_title: Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad / Historical background / Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad
caption_attribution_description: English: The Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad depot, Philadelphia, PA. 1854
context_page_description: Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad was one of the earliest commercial railroads in the United States, running 82 miles from Philadelphia to Columbia, Pennsylvania, it was built by the Pennsylvania Canal Commission in lieu of a canal from Columbia to Philadelphia; in 1857 it became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It is currently owned and operated by Amtrak as its electrified Keystone Corridor. The Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad's western terminus was located near the former ferry site known as Wright's Ferry, in the town once of that name, but now Columbia in Lancaster County. There the P&CR met with the Pennsylvania Canal—navigations and improvements on the Susquehanna River east bank approximately 30 miles south of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Most of its right-of-way was obtained by the actions of the Pennsylvania Canal Commission which operated the railroad under the various enabling acts of the Pennsylvania legislature known as the Main Line of Public Works in support of a far sighted plan to link the whole state by canals.
context_section_description: The Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad began in Philadelphia at Broad and Vine Streets, ran north on Broad and west on Pennsylvania Avenue (a segment later taken over and submerged/tunneled over by the Reading Railroad), then headed northwest across the Columbia Bridge over the Schuylkill River. Just after crossing the river, it traveled up the Belmont Plane, an inclined plane in the current location of West Fairmount Park, and continued west across the eastern part of the state to Columbia, where the Columbia Plane headed down to the Susquehanna River. At that point, the eastern division of the canal was joined to the railroad, allowing transhipment of traffic heading north along the river and then west.
  Built with public funding, the double-track RR originally operated on a turnpike basis open to all comers, with shippers supplying their own RR cars, horsepower, and drivers (either themselves or their contractors).  The RR soon decided also to offer newfangled steam locomotives as an option to haul the cars, interspersed with horse traffic.  Horses were banned for through traffic in 1844, and schedules enforced.
  In order to bypass the Belmont Plane, the original Philadelphia & Columbia RR grade between its eastern terminus and Athensville (renamed Ardmore in 1873) was abandoned and replaced in 1850 with a new alignment roughly following the route of the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike (now Lancaster Avenue) and including the existing West Philadelphia Railroad which the state purchased from the railroad's private owners. This realignment is still in use as the four track "Keystone Corridor" as far as Ardmore (MP 8.5) and is shared by trains of both Amtrak (its current owner) and SEPTA.
caption: P&CRR Philadelphia depot
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "4608", "Image ImageLength": "3216", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "CanoScan", "Image Model": "LiDE 700F", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "600", "Image YResolution": "600", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2013:06:02 22:04:25", "Image HostComputer": "Apple Mac OS X", "Image ExifOffset": "300", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "450", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7580", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2150", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1257"}