Mercer and Somerset Railway

rdf:langString Mercer and Somerset Railway

rdf:langString The Mercer and Somerset Railway was a short-lived line of the Pennsylvania Railroad in western New Jersey, built to delay completion of the Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad, part of the National Railway line (later owned by the Philadelphia and Reading Railway) from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to New York City. The railroad ran from on the Belvidere Delaware Rail Road via Pennington and Hopewell to Millstone. A connection to the Millstone and New Brunswick Railroad for a through route to New Brunswick. The bridges over the river and canal at East Millstone were completed by November 22, 1873 by January 10, 1874, the was completed but only a portion open to traffic the line was fully opened to traffic by March 7, 1874. The Mercer & Somerset Railway lost its battle with the Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad. Thus, it was bankrupt, defunct and dismantled by 1880. A stone pillar in the middle of the Millstone River just south of Amwell Road still remains today, built as part of the infrastructure to carry the tracks across the river. Hopewell was the site of a frog war with the National Railway. A plan existed at one time to extend the Philadelphia, Newtown and New York Railroad, another railroad being built to block the National Railway, to cross the Delaware River and connect with the M&S.