The Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines was a railroad that operated in Southern New Jersey in the 20th century. It was created in 1933 as a joint consolidation venture between two competing railroads in the region: the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Reading Company.
History
In the late 19th
There were two competing railroad companies connecting Camden and, by ferry, Philadelphia, with the South Jersey seashore:
the West Jersey and Seashore Railroad (WJ&S), owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the Atlantic City Railroad, owned by the Philadelphia and Reading Railway.
Competition was fierce, albeit peculiar: "although they met annually [in the 19th century] to set fares and rules for excursion traffic, they battled for passengers by offering faster trains, better equipment, and even bribes to Atlantic City hoteliers and cab drivers."
By its height in the 1920s competition was so intense that at one time both lines boasted some of the fastest trains in the world.
thumb|upright=1.1|PRSL's Broadway station a few months before the final service into [[Camden, New Jersey|Camden ended on January 14, 1966]]
Following World War II, the rise of automobile use, the completion of the Atlantic City Expressway, and growing popularity of air travel led to a reduction in rail use. Increased air travel also led some to abandon Atlantic City for more exotic vacation destinations, including Florida. By the late 1960s, the surviving former Camden and Atlantic City Main Line was reduced to a commuter service funded by the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) running trains of Budd RDC railcars operating from a small terminal at Lindenwold PATCO station and Atlantic City.
While the P-RSL did not enter bankruptcy, its owners, the Penn Central, successor to the Pennsylvania, did. The Reading filed bankruptcy a few years after the Penn Central. As a result, Conrail took over the P-RSL on April 1, 1976.
The ACRR, a subsidiary of the Reading Company, had one line from its Kaighn's Point Terminal going to Winslow Junction with lines splitting off to Atlantic City, Ocean City, Wildwood, and Cape May.