However, attempts to buy out and demolish buildings in the right-of-way led to riots, and the Philadelphia & Trenton was forced to end at Kensington.

To resolve the problem, Connecting Railway Company was incorporated May 15, 1863, and between 1864 and June 1867, constructed a 6.75-mile (10.86 km) connecting line between Frankford Junction on the Philadelphia & Trenton and Mantua Junction (now Zoo interlocking) on the PRR mainline, passing through what is now North Philadelphia.

The charter was amended on April 10, 1867, to allow it to build from the Philadelphia & Trenton at Holmesburg Junction to the nearby town of Bustleton instead.

The company subsequently went bankrupt and was sold at foreclosure on November 18, 1890, and was reorganized on January 12, 1891 as the Bustleton Railroad and leased to PRR.

At some point it also bought the connecting Philadelphia & Trenton line of 1.23 miles (1.98 km) from the P&T main down Tioga Street.

The Philadelphia, Bustleton & Trenton, after completing 3.55 miles (5.71 km) of the line in December 1896, built no further towards Fallsington.

On December 9, 1956, the Pennsylvania, Ohio and Detroit Railroad, an agglomeration of certain PRR Lines West, was merged into the corporation.

Because of the northern alignment of the Connecting Railway, passenger trains between New York and Pittsburgh would stop there only, bypassing 30th Street Station.

Electrified service from Chestnut Hill to Broad Street Station began in 1918 and over the Fort Washington Branch in 1924.

In 1953, the upper section of the branch from the Trenton Cutoff connection at Fort Hill to Wyndmoor was abandoned.

The remaining section from Wyndmoor to Allen Lane continued to see freight service until the late 1970s; this remnant was abandoned and removed in the early 1980s.