The arteries of industry

The arteries of industry. The Schuylkill River shapes early Philadelphia. , By the 1850s, railroads surpassed waterways as the most efficient mode of transportation and shipping. Trains could haul up to three times as much cargo as boats in a fraction of the time. The many trains that chugged through and around Philadelphia transformed the city into an industrial powerhouse., Branches of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) ran along the Schuylkill River. Here, B&O spurs serviced local industries, linking them to the main lines., After World War II, the railroads underwent a series of buyouts and mergers. Much of PRR's Schuylkill branch was converted into the pedestrian Schuylkill River Trail. CSX Transportation absorbed the B&O and PRR tracks near Schuylkill Avenue. Trains continue to travel these routes today, carrying freight to local and national destinations., [Captions:] , The Tropicana Juice Train carries its flavorful cargo near Schuylkill Avenue on its way from Florida to New Jersey. The original refrigerator boxcars were orange., 2017 Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Roberts Center for Pediatric Research., 1931 , A freight train ran along this site in 1931. Freight cars used railroad spurs adjacent to the tracks to transport cargo to and from local warehouses and industrial sites., These PRR tracks connected South Philadelphia to the west bank of the Schuylkill River near the south end of Schuylkill Avenue.