Baltimore Belt Line pulled by horses along Pratt Street between the B&O's Camden Station and the PW&B's President Street Station. In 1884, the PW&B was purchased by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), a major rival of the B&O, and the PRR cut off the connection. The B&O then proceeded to build its Philadelphia Branch (formally known as the Baltimore and Philadelphia Railroad) to connect to the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, in turn connecting with the Central Railroad of New Jersey for B&O's New York service. The combination also provided a connection to the Staten Island Railway, which served as the terminal switching company for
Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines 1931, New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) ordered the two companies to join their southern New Jersey lines into one company. The "Consolidation Agreement" decreed that the Pennsylvania Railroad had two-thirds ownership, and the Reading Company had one-third ownership. But the post-war rise of the automobile and the Atlantic City Expressway, built in the 1960s, not only caused people to abandon the railroad for their cars, but also to abandon Atlantic City for more exotic vacation destinations (e.g. Florida). By the late 1960s, the surviving former Camden and Atlantic City Main Line was reduced to a commuter service funded