United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Companies
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| Locale | New Jersey and Pennsylvania |
|---|---|
| Dates of operation | 1832–1976 |
| Successor | Amtrak, Conrail |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
The United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Company (UNJ&CC) was a railroad company which began as the important Camden & Amboy Railroad (C&A) whose 1830 lineage began as one of the eight or ten earliest permanent North Americanrailroads, and among the first common carrier transportation companies whose prospectus marketed an enterprise aimed (with a priority or principally) at carrying passengers fast and competing with stagecoaches between New York Harbor and Philadelphia-Trenton. Among the other earliest chartered or incorporated railroads, only the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad were chartered with passenger services in mind. Later after mergers as the UNJ&CC became a subsidiary part of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) system in New Jersey by the later merger and acquisition of several predecessor companies in 1872; which purchases also included the PRR's main line to New York City (now Amtrak's Northeast Corridor). Prior to 1872, its main lines were the Camden and Amboy Rail Road and Transportation Company (C&A, below), the first railroad in New Jersey and one of the first railroad in the United States.
The Camden and Amboy was the first railroad to be conceived primarily as a passenger railroad and the first to employ steam locomotives to replace animal powered vehicles on rails. C&A first purchased and operated (what is now the oldest surviving operable steam locomotive in the world today) the John Bull, imported from Great Britain ca. 1832. Its operations also lead to the important development of the iron T-rail type rail tracks that became standard around the world. The United Company also included the Delaware and Raritan Canal, an early foe and then friend of the C&A.
The new conglomerate also included the New Jersey Rail Road and Transportation Company, the first railroad across the New Jersey Palisades.
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