Transportation in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania has a long and variegated history. An early-settled part of the United States, and lying on the route between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, it has been the site of early experiments in canals, railroads, and highways. Before all these, at least ten Native American paths crossed parts of the county, many connecting with the Susquehannock village of Conestoga.
Canals The principal waterway in Lancaster County is the Susquehanna River, which forms its western border. However, its many rocks and rapids made it difficult for navigation. An attempt was made in 1820 by James Hopkins to dig a canal to bypass the Conewago Falls, already bypassed in 1797 by the Conewago Canal in York County on the opposite side of the river. However, the Hopkins Canal was poorly laid out and not useful for navigation. He was then authorized by the legislature to build a canal along the Conestoga River to Lancaster to connect that city with the Susquehanna, but abandoned it after building one lock.
On March 3, 1825, the Conestoga Navigation Company was incorporated to make a second attempt at improving the Conestoga River. It was placed into operation in 1826. The Conestoga Navigation was 18 miles (29 km) long, with nine locks and dams, between Safe Harbor, at the mouth of the creek, and Lancaster.
Interest in improving the Susquehanna continued. Surveys were made along the east bank from Chickies Rock to the Maryland state line in 1827; the extension of the Eastern Division of the Pennsylvania Canal to Columbia was authorized on March 24, 1828, and again on March 21, 1831, and was completed on December 4, 1832. Revenue service began on April 9, 1833. The construction of the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad (vide infra) placed Columbia on the route from Philadelphia into the western parts of the state, via the canal. The Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal to Baltimore was ultimately opened in 1840 on the west side of the river, canal boats crossing at Columbia to reach the Pennsylvania Canal.
By this time, the Conestoga Navigation was already in financial difficulties, and was sold to the Lancaster & Susquehanna Slack-water Navigation Company. The newly built (1838) rail line from Harrisburg to Lancaster allowed westward trade to bypass the canals, and by 1849, the Eastern Division was entirely paralleled by rail. The state sold the Main Line of Public Works to the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1857, which kept the canals in desultory operation. The former Columbia Navigation last collected lock fees in 1872; its dams were later used for hydropower in the early 20th century. The last operating segment of the Pennsylvania Canal, from Columbia northward to Nanticoke, was abandoned on April 11, 1901.
Of the nine original Conestoga Navigation locks between Lancaster and the Susquehanna River, Lock 6 is the only survivor. Maintained by the Safe Harbor Water Power Corporation, it can be seen at Conestoga Creek Park near Safe Harbor. Railroad fill and construction has essentially obliterated the Pennsylvania Canal within the county.
Railroads
Railroad history The first railroad to pass through Lancaster County was the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, opened through Lancaster to the canal port of Columbia on March 31 or April 1, 1834. It was constructed by the state as part of the Main Line of Public Works, a combined rail and canal system connecting Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. In these early days, it was looked upon as a sort of public highway, and private horses and wagons that fit the gauge could be used on the line until 1844. Today this might be called open access.
The Philadelphia and Columbia quickly inspired connecting lines. In 1836, the Harrisburg, Portsmouth, Mount Joy and Lancaster Railroad (HPMt.J&L RR) built a connecting line from Dillerville, just west of Lancaster, to Mount Joy. Building from both ends, the line was completed from Dillerville to Harrisburg in 1838. This bypassed the canal between Harrisburg and Columbia. The P&C also encouraged the businessmen of Strasburg, who built the Strasburg Railroad from the Philadelphia and Columbia at Leaman Place to Strasburg in 1837. Transformed from a freight line to a tourist railroad in the 1950s, it is now one of the county's most popular tourist attractions.
In 1849, the HPMt.J&L RR was taken over by the Pennsylvania Railroad, then constructing an all-rail route across the state. It also bought the Marietta and Portsmouth Railroad, under whose charter it built a branch, paralleling the river and canal, from Royalton to Columbia. Besides the canal, the Philadelphia and Columbia (and the new branch from Royalton) connected to the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge, which provided rail access to the Northern Central Railway via the Wrightsville, York and Gettysburg Railroad.
The PRR was forced to use the Philadelphia and Columbia between Dillerville and Philadelphia, and the sometimes lackadaisical operation of the state-run railroad proved burdensome and a bottleneck to traffic. In 1853, the PRR arranged to lease the Lancaster, Lebanon and Pine Grove Railroad, an as-yet unbuilt line from Philadelphia to Salunga via Phoenixville, and threatened to bypass the State line entirely. The threat, and intensive lobbying, was ultimately successful in persuading the Commonwealth to sell the entire Main Line of Public Works to the PRR in 1857. The PRR sold its interest in the LL&PG the following year, and the line would never be built.
The PRR also formally leased the HPMt.J&L RR in 1861, giving it complete control over its line from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. This line would provide valuable service during the Civil War, particularly when the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad came under attack from Confederates and saboteurs or was simply jammed with traffic. Troops could be sent via the PRR to Columbia, cross the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge, and ride down the Northern Central to Baltimore. However, Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania forced the state militia to retreat across the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge and burn it behind them on June 28, 1863. While the destruction of the bridge saved the county from a Confederate invasion, it cut off access to the markets of York County, and it was not replaced until several years after the war.
During the Civil War, a new railroad appeared on the scene in Lancaster County. Controlled by the Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road, the Reading and Columbia Railroad built down from the Reading area to reach Columbia, crossing the PRR at Landisville, with a branch from Lancaster Jct. to Lancaster. The Columbia and Port Deposit Railroad also proposed to enter the county from the south, following the Susquehanna, but its construction was long stalled by inadequate funds and the difficult, rocky bluffs along the river.
While the principal arteries of the Lancaster County railroads had mostly been completed by this time, the Gilded Age witnessed a period of independent railroad construction, speculation, and financial maneuvers. The Lancaster and Reading Narrow Gauge Railroad was chartered in 1871 to build a gauge route from Safe Harbor to Lancaster to Reading, with a branch from Lancaster to Quarryville, competing with the Reading & Columbia. Construction began on the branch line to Quarryville, but was quickly changed to standard gauge. Hindered by the Panic of 1873, the company struck a deal with the Philadelphia & Reading to complete the line from Lancaster to Quarryville in return for control of the company, which it did in the following year. It thus became an extension of the Reading's Lancaster Branch. In 1876, the East Brandywine and Waynesburg Railroad built into the county from the east to reach the prosperous agricultural town of New Holland, and was promptly leased by the PRR. In 1877, the Columbia and Port Deposit, under control of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, finally finished its line into Columbia.
1878 saw the construction of one of the more implausible railroads of the area, the Peach Bottom Railway. Born of the "narrow-gauge fever" then sweeping the country, it was conceived as a gauge line from Philadelphia to the Broad Top coal fields. Surprisingly, the Eastern Division of the line was constructed from Oxford into Lancaster County, ending on the banks of the Susquehanna at Peach Bottom; no bridge was ever built to the Middle Division across the river, which would become the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad. Subsisting on sparse local traffic, the Eastern Division was sold at a bankruptcy auction in September 1881 and reorganized as the Peach Bottom Railroad. Another chimerical dream of this period was the Hanover Junction and Susquehanna Railroad. Intended to run from Landisville across the river to Hanover Junction on the Northern Central, it was reorganized in 1881 as the Reading, Marietta and Hanover Railroad, under the control of the Reading and Columbia, and produced only a short line built in 1883 from Marietta Jct. to the PRR's Columbia Branch at the foot of Chickies Rock and the dying iron furnaces there.
A more substantial result was achieved by the construction, in the same year, of the Cornwall and Mount Hope Railroad from the massive iron ore pits at Cornwall, in Lebanon County, to Mount Hope and a connection with the Reading & Columbia (which had built a spur there from Manheim a few years previous). It was controlled by the Cornwall Railroad, one of two competing lines from Cornwall to Lebanon; the other was the Cornwall and Lebanon Railroad, which set about its own southward extension at the same time. Its subsidiary, the Colebrook Valley Railroad completed a line from Cornwall to Conewago Jct., on the PRR main line, the following year. It was merged into the Cornwall & Lebanon in 1886.
In 1888, the East Brandywine & Waynesburg was foreclosed and reorganized as the Downingtown and Lancaster Railroad, still controlled by the PRR. It extended from New Holland into Lancaster in 1890, creating a rural bypass of the main line from Downingtown to Lancaster. About this time, the PRR faced a threat to its relative dominance in Lancaster County. The Peach Bottom was sold to a group of Lancaster businessmen and reorganized in 1890 as the Lancaster, Oxford and Southern Railroad. The new owners hoped to use it as part of a bridge line which would allow the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to enter Lancaster. The B&O would build north from Childs to reach the Peach Bottom at Oxford. The Peach Bottom would be converted to standard gauge and build a branch from Fairmont to Quarryville. From there, B&O trains would travel over the Lancaster & Reading Narrow Gauge to reach Lancaster. However, the plan was foiled by the poor financial state of the companies involved. At the beginning of 1900, the PRR was able to gain control of the L&RNG from the Reading, scotching the plan. Despite the failure of the grand scheme, the LO&S built the Quarryville branch anyway in 1905. This ill-advised maneuver plunged it into debt from which it would never recover. The B&O completed its portion of the LO&S line to Providence, Maryland, where it served a paper plant. The line was removed in 1977."official guide of the railways"
One of the smaller lines in the county was built in 1902, when the Champion Iron and Separating Company built a spur from the Columbia and Port Deposit (by now a PRR branch) at Safe Harbor to reach their ore banks and concentrating mill near Marticville. Never successful, the company struggled along through foreclosures and reorganizations for a decade before abandonment in 1912.