West Jersey and Seashore Railroad

West Jersey and Seashore Railroad (WJ&S)

System map (West Jersey and Seashore Railroad lines in red, Atlantic City Railroad lines in purple)
Locale	Camden and Winslow Junction to Atlantic City and Millville/Cape May, New Jersey
Dates of operation	1896–1933
Successor	P-RSL
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Electrification	600 V DC third rail
Headquarters	Camden, New Jersey

The West Jersey and Seashore Railroad (WJ&S) was a Pennsylvania Railroad subsidiary that became part of Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines in 1933. At the end of 1925 it operated 379 miles (610 km) of road on 717 miles (1,154 km) of track; that year it reported 166 million ton-miles of revenue freight and 332 million passenger-miles.

On May 4, 1896 the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) consolidated all its railroads and several smaller properties in southern New Jersey into the West Jersey and Seashore Railroad (WJ&S).

The WJ&S, as a subsidiary of the PRR, had two lines coming from its Federal Street Terminal in Camden, New Jersey:

On October 28, 1906 an accident in Atlantic City killed 53 people when a three-car train plunged off an open swing bridge.

This railroad was granted its charter by the state of New Jersey on March 19, 1852.

The line was built from Camden to Atlantic City via Berlin. In late June 1854, it was completed sans the drawbridge over the Thorofare outside of Atlantic City; regular passenger service started on July 4. This line is currently used for passenger service by PATCO and NJ Transit's Atlantic City Line.

The PRR gained control of the Camden and Amboy Railroad (C&A) through its subsidiary West Jersey Railroad on January 1, 1883.

The West Jersey Railroad (WJ) was granted its charter by the state of New Jersey on February 5, 1853 to build a line from Camden, New Jersey to Cape May, New Jersey. The line was then built with the backing of the C&A from Camden to Glassboro. The first 8.2 miles (13.2 km) of the line used the abandoned right-of-way built by the Camden and Woodbury Railroad. The line was completed in 1863. In that year the WJ directors decided to build a line to Bridgeton NJ, and later build the line from Glassboro to Millville and Cape May. The right of way is now South Jersey/Philadelphia Shared Assets Operations Vineland Secondary freight rail line. The northern section is slated to become the light-rail Glassboro–Camden Line.