The canal joining the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers in the initial planning was to run across the most populated expanse of Pennsylvania's Great Valley region (and so was delayed politically in part by local land concerns and the due-process needs of eminent domain).

Despite the relatively untried and unproven nature of the railroad technologies with the example of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad project in direct competition—legal capabilities, funding and construction was shifted to a railroad—it was expected to be far faster and cheaper to build above ground and make bridges than it was to dig a deep ditch and provide it with reliable water supplies to enable two way barge traffic.

Built by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania during a time when America's main coastal cities were vying to become the most important and influential port from the mid-1820s, it was an attempt by business interests[2] to position their own port city to be the principal supplier and beneficiary of the economic boom expected from the new markets and resources, all resulting from the great wave of post revolutionary war immigration taking place westwards to the Ohio Country and Northwest Territory regions in the 19th century.

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.

[8] Built with public funding, the double-track railroad originally operated on a turnpike basis which opened it to all comers, with shippers supplying their own rail carriages, wagons, horse power, and drivers.

The railroad soon decided also to offer the option of new-fangled steam locomotives to haul the carriages and wagons assembled into trains, which ran interspersed between horse-hauled traffic.

The "Washington's" steam pressure was less than eighty pounds to the square inch, and the time to make the run was 2 minutes, 24 seconds representing a speed of 13.25 mph.

The older planned line, was abandoned and became the route of present-day Montgomery Avenue in Lower Merion Township running from the Schuylkill River up the Belmont Plane to Ardmore.

The Columbia Plane, which lowered railway cars down to the Eastern Division Canal along the Susquehanna River, was bypassed in 1840 by a new track alignment[15] allowed by more modern engines with greater power.