| Railroad Name: | Baltimore and Philadelphia Railroad |
| Locale: | Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland |
| Start Year: | 1886 |
| End Year: | 1989 |
| Successor Line: | CSX |
| Length: | 109 miles (175 km) |
| Hq City: | Wilmington and Philadelphia |
The Baltimore and Philadelphia Railroad was a railroad line built by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to the Maryland-Delaware state line, where it connected with the B&O's Philadelphia Branch to reach Baltimore, Maryland. It was built in the 1880s after the B&O lost access to its previous route to Philadelphia, the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B). The cost of building the new route, especially the Howard Street Tunnel on the connecting Baltimore Belt Line, led to the B&O's first bankruptcy. Today, the line is used by CSX Transportation for freight trains.
In 1838, the B&O began service from Baltimore to Philadelphia using the new PW&B line.[1] Connecting trackage in Baltimore ran from the B&O's Mount Clare terminal east along Pratt Street and East Falls Avenue to the PW&B's President Street Station. From there the PW&B ran east on Fleet Street and Boston Street before leaving onto its own right-of-way.
In 1881, the B&O attempted to gain control of the PW&B, but lost the stock battle to the Pennsylvania Railroad, which informed the B&O that it would lose access to the PW&B line in 1884.[2] This forced the B&O to build a new route to Philadelphia. It acquired the Delaware Western Railroad, which had a charter but no track, merged it into the Baltimore & Philadelphia in 1883, and began construction. The line was in full operation by 1886.[3] While the line in Delaware and Pennsylvania was operated by the Baltimore and Philadelphia, the line in Maryland was operated directly by the B&O as its Philadelphia Branch.[4]
Except at its two ends, the line was built within a few miles to the northwest of the PW&B. At the Baltimore end, the line ended in the Canton neighborhood, with a car ferry across the Patapsco River to Locust Point. At the Philadelphia end, the new line crossed the PW&B and its old alignment (part of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway's branch to Chester) and crossed to the east side of the Schuylkill River on the new B&O Railroad Bridge, just south of the Grays Ferry Bridge. A branch split there towards the Delaware River, while the main line continued north along the Schuylkill, with a station downtown, and then passed through the Art Museum Tunnel to Park Junction with the Philadelphia and Reading Railway's main line; this tunnel, the last part of the line to be finished, opened on December 15, 1886.[5]
The Reading, originally using the Junction Railroad west of the Schuylkill to access its Chester branch, obtained trackage rights over the Baltimore and Philadelphia, and the B&O obtained trackage rights over the Reading's lines from Philadelphia to Jersey City, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York City. (This route via the Reading originally ran via the main line, Port Richmond Branch, North Pennsylvania Railroad, North Pennsylvania Railroad Delaware River Branch, Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad and Central Railroad of New Jersey, later using the shortcut of the Philadelphia, Newtown and New York Railroad and New York Short Line Railroad rather than the North Pennsylvania.) The Baltimore and New York Railway and Staten Island Rapid Transit Railway provided their own freight terminal, at St. George on Staten Island.
Though a surface alignment through downtown Baltimore was authorized by the Maryland legislature, the B&O instead obtained a charter for the Baltimore Belt Line to provide a completely grade-separated route. This new route entered the long Howard Street Tunnel at Camden Station, running north under downtown, and then turning east through two shorter tunnels to a junction with the Philadelphia Branch at Bay View Yard. The Baltimore Belt Line was completed in 1895, and its expenses drove the B&O to bankruptcy in 1896.
The last passenger trains ran through the tunnel and over the Baltimore and Philadelphia in 1958; since then all traffic has been freight. The route is now operated by CSX as its Philadelphia Subdivision.