Schuylkill Branch

[1] The Schuylkill Branch originated as an attempt by the Pennsylvania Railroad to develop its anthracite coal holdings in the upper Susquehanna watershed.

[3] The first had charter rights to run from some point on the PRR's main line to Pittsburgh between Girard Avenue, Philadelphia and Radnor to the Schuylkill valley, and then up the river to Phoenixville.

Construction began in August 1882, before the company was organized, along a 23.8-mile (38.3 km) route from the main line near Monticello Street in Philadelphia to Phoenixville.

In the 1930s, as part of the extensive electrification project that brought New York–Washington and Harrisburg–Philadelphia intercity passenger and through-freight service under wire, the Schuylkill Branch was electrified from its 52nd Street Junction in Philadelphia to Haws Avenue in Norristown.

With the bankruptcies of the PRR's successor Penn Central and the Reading Company, the creation of Conrail in 1976 led to the closure and abandonment of the Schuylkill Valley Branch north of Manayunk.

While mostly abandoned, and since converted to a rail trail connecting Philadelphia with the Valley Forge National Historical Park near King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, a short piece in Norristown is used by Norfolk Southern Railway (NS), which took over much of the PRR system when it split Conrail's interests with CSX, as part of their Morrisville Connecting Track.

[citation needed] Because of its rejection by the Federal Railroad Administration due to the high cost, primarily for electrification of the entire line and the need to rebuild the entire Philadelphia-Manayunk section of the Schuylkill Branch, alternate plans including using the ex-Reading Manayunk/Norristown route only, with partial extension of the electrified service as far as King of Prussia, and any service west of King of Prussia requiring the use of push-pull consists using dual-power ALP-45DP locomotives similar to those delivered to New Jersey Transit and Montreal's Exo.

The abandoned Schuylkill Branch Bridge crossing the Schuylkill River in Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania , in 2011
Pages 188-189 from The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) Employee Timetable Philadelphia Region No.2, showing the then-active service between Norristown and Philadelphia Suburban Station ; service was truncated to Manayunk a few years later, and was further truncated under SEPTA to the Cynwyd Line .
Former section of the Schuylkill Branch in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia that is part of the Schuylkill River Trail; the PRR-era catenary poles remain.