American Street tracks

I was looking through a book on the Reading and saw some very intersting pictures of Reading switcher camel backs operating on a dirt street industrial area identified as "American Street" circa 1946. I went into Philly last week to see what was left. The street is now paved except for about a hundred yards near where it used to join the Port Richmond connection with discarded rails in the weeds. There is, however, in the obviously later paved street, still a set of rails almost all the way south to Girard Ave. There are connections running off to the side which obviously lead to now gone factories, though a few old brick buildings survive. What I would like to know is when trains last used this line. Did it survive into Conrail days ? Did it have a connection to the south beyond Girard Ave. ? Considering that the rails look to be in very good shape has anyone considered revitalizing that area for light industry ? Thanks for any info.

I tried replying to this post twice last week, and my laptop never let me send the final posting.

This is part of the southern end of the ex-Reading Bethlehem Branch, originally the North Pennsylvania Railroad. Conrail did have a few customers in the early 80's, but the line died out shortly thereafter.

The City of Phila bought the tracks from CR in 1978 for a nominal fee so that they could rebuild them into the single track line with sidings that exists today. There were fifteen sidings that were re-constructed during this project. Compare that to the more than 60 sidings that existed in 1931, according to the Reading's Freight Shipper's Guide.

The line terminated at the Willow & Noble St. yard of the RDG. This was next to the current Phila Cold Storage Warehouse on Delaware Ave. Pier 27, which had a truss bridge leading to it's upper level, used to be just across Delaware Ave. from the Cold Storage Warehouse. Some of the trackage still exists in the street in and around the CSW.

The American Street corridor is a 'Keystone Opportunity Zone', which provides tax breaks for industries to relocate, but they haven't had any success in attracting business that would use rail service.

The Schmidt's brewery used to be a big customer (they were located at 2nd and Girard), and there were three freight yards, Lehigh Ave., Berks St. and Master St., along American St. Berks St. was the main yard, and originated two daily frieghts to and from Bethlehem.

Let's see if this post goes through this time, and if it does and you have more questions, I'll try and post again.

Does anyone have any pics from this line during the PC / CR days?

DOT wrote:Does anyone have any pics from this line during the PC / CR days?

This was an ex-RDG line, it was never operated by PC. I worked in that area for several years in the late 70's and early 80's and rail traffic was pretty much extinct by that time. The only cars I really remember seeing were some hoppers at the old Domino Sugar plant along Delaware Avenue. Unfortunately, the City's redevelopment plan for the American Street coridor never really took off, I suspect some of the newly installed sidings never saw a single railcar.

I remember seeing cars on at least one spur around 1975/76 not far from Allegheny Ave. I was hoping that someone had some photos of the line when it was active.

The cars that you saw near Allegheny Avenue were probably serving the now defunct grain elevators just to the east of I-95. There is still active rail service on this part of the Richmond Branch and CSX is still using the maintenance facility just south of that area.