Shellpot Branch

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The Shellpot Branch is a former Pennsylvania Railroad/Penn Central through-freight railroad owned and operated by Norfolk Southern since its acquisition, along with CSX Transportation, of Conrail in 1999. The branch allows Norfolk Southern, since to opening of a new bridge in 2001, to bypass the city of Wilmington, Delaware and allow access to both the Port of Wilmington and the Delaware Branch to Central Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia's Eastern Shore. Both ends of the branch connects with Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, and like all of the PRR's through-freight lines, was electrified until the Conrail era.

The line, going from 30th Street Station and the Harrisburg Subdivision in Philadelphia, starts at the Bell interlocking near Claymont, Delaware, a "flying junction" in which the four-track Northeast Corridor, when back in the PRR/Penn Central days, would operate commuter and long-distance trains in the outer tracks and through freight on the inner tracks, perform a sort-of "dos-si-do," with the two freight tracks "ducking" underneath of the inbound passenger track. After the tracks level off, which occurs at the Edgemoor Substation (which is used to power Amtrak and SEPTA trains), the line splits off of the NEC past the DuPont Edgemoor Plant and an underpass for I-495.

Just after the split, the Edgemoor Branch breaks off from the Shellpot Branch, while at the same time, the line enters the massive Edgemoor Yard facility. After passing under 12th Street, the line, with I-495 paralleling it, crosses over the Christina River on a single-track turntable bridge that was completed in 2001, replacing a delapidated two-track structure that forced Conrail, due to budgetary issues, to restructure Shellpot Branch operations in the mid-1990s. Past the bridge, the Delmarva Branch splits off, with a "Y" junction, built in 2001 along with the bridge, allowing both eastbound and westbound trains to access the line without having to go through Wilmington (which would only be allowed during overnight hours) and then reversing direction in Newport. The Shellpot Branch ends with the line rejoining the NEC at the line's Ragan interlocking near Newport.