About: Shellpot Branch

The Shellpot Branch (also called the Shellpot Secondary) 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 the opening of a new bridge in 2001, to bypass the city of Wilmington, Delaware and allows direct access to both the Port of Wilmington and the New Castle Secondary, which connects to the Delmarva Subdivision of the Delmarva Central Railroad that runs to Central Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia's Eastern Shore. Both ends of the branch connect with Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and, like all of the PRR's through-freight lines, was electrified from 1935 until the Conrail era. The line was originally built doubly t