History

The Philadelphia & Delaware County Railroad was built in 1888 and linked Newtown Square in Delaware County to the Philadelphia Wilmington Central RR in Fernwood, Delaware County. It originally offered passenger and freight service to the rural communities along it's route. The Philadelphia and Baltimore Central RR (A PRR subsidiary) took over operations in 1894.   In 1895 a branch was completed through the Cobb’s Creek Valley to the mills in Cardington and Millbourne. The Cardington branch had freight interchange with the Philadelphia and Western RR at the 69^th Street Terminal in Upper Darby. In 1908 passenger service was discontinued as the Philadelphia & West Chester Traction Co.’s trolleys took most of the commuter service in the area. However, freight service continued and grew.

The center of operations for the railroad was a small yard in Pembroke about a mile west of Fernwood Junction. At it peak in the mid 1930s, two arranged freight trains would leave West Philadelphia Yard 15 minutes apart and head toward Pembroke Yard.  There, the cars were sorted for the Fernwood/Pembroke sections, the Newtown Square branch, and the Cardington branch.

Seen on the railroad from time to time were an assortment of extra trains which included circus trains, work trains, fire trains, rail fan excursion trains, and the often seen “dinky”.

Traffic declined in the ensuing years.  By 1945 only one train a day was needed to handle the traffic and by 1957 service was handled as a side run by the Media local. The last steam locomotive ran on August 14, 1951. Operations between Grassland and Newtown Square were discontinued in 1963 due to deterioration of bridges and trestles.  In 1981 sporadic operations on the branch ceased. Most of the tracks, bridges and trestles were torn up by 1985 except for the Steel Deck Girder Bridge across Baltimore Pike in East Lansdowne which was not removed until 2003.