Over Philly, just minutes from landing this is the bend in the Schuykill river where 2 ex Reading freight lines cross with the highway next to them. Approx 2000 to 3000 up

Some additional info on this picture from a local railfan who contacted me on it.

The truss bridge upstream from the railroad and high-level U.S. 1/13 bridges is the Falls Bridge: the Strawberry Mansion bridge (an arch bridge notable in that its deck extends only over one half of the width of the bridge (the other side was a trolley line)) is downstream about 1,000 yards. The area is known as The Falls: before the Fairmount Dam was built, this was the "fall line" of the Schuykill, the head of navigation. The original main line of the Reading crossed the stone arch bridge, climbed the Falls Grade (moving to the right in the picture) and went to the
Delaware River (the Reading was built as a freight (coal) railroad, and was not designed to come into Center City Philadelphia). The left side of the "wye"
connected the Reading to the Philadelphia & Columbia at the foot of the Belmont Planes (the Belmont Plateau section of Fairmount Park includes the wooded area at the left end of the bridges). That branch continues back across the Schuykill on the Columbia Bridge and into Center City (Park Junction, with one line using the "City Subway" to get to the old Reading Terminal, and the other in a tunnel in front of the Art Museum to continue as the Baltimore & Ohio). The third leg of the "wye" is that built to create the B&O's "Royal Blue Route" to New York City. Traffic from the South could now continue up the Falls Grade, swing left through Wayne Junction, then right at Newtown Junction and continue up the New York Short Line and the eventual connection of the Reading to the Jersey Central at Bound Brook NJ.

Photographed by Charles Kadyk, June 20, 2005.
Added to the photo archive by Charles Kadyk, June 24, 2005.
Railroad: Norfolk Southern.

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