A History of the Junction & Breakwater Railroad

A History of the Junction and Breakwater Railroad. . , All Aboard! , Chartered in 1857, the Junction and Breakwater Railroad (J&BRR) ran the 38 miles from a junction with the Delaware Railroad in Harrington to the Delaware Breakwater in Lewes. The portion of the line from Georgetown to Lewes opened for service in 1870 and linked the established towns of Georgetown and Lewes with new, smaller communities that formed after the stations were constructed. During the late 1870s, a branch line was completed from Lewes Station to Rehoboth from resort traffic., The J&BRR was the only mode of freight transportation that passed through Lewes in the nineteenth century. That changed in 1910, when the U.S. Congress approved the construction of a new freight shipment route in Sussex County known as the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction on the canal in 1913, and it opened in 1916. Despite its intended use as a heavy freight transportation route, the canal quickly became obsolete due to the development of more efficient and affordable rail and road transport in the area., Decline of the Railroad , Unlike the canal, the J&BRR continued to serve as an important regional transportation route for commercial and passenger traffic into the mid-twentieth century, first as a part of the Delaware Maryland and Virginia Railroad, and later under the Philadelphia, Baltimore and Wilmington Railroad., By the mid-twentieth century, the railroad faced increased competition from Delaware's emerging truck industry and the national trend toward the use of personal automobiles. Unable to compete with the newer modes of transportation, passenger service on the line terminated in 1949. During the 1980s, the State of Delaware acquired the rights of the section of the railroad line from Georgetown to Lewes, and up until 2016, it operated as a freight line under the Delaware Coast Line Railroad., Today, the only railroad buildings that remain along this section of the line are the former Passenger Station and Engine House in Georgetown.