Susquehanna Valley v. Lehigh Valley

[bridge12]

Originally Posted by mville1

Just a quick note, but the city of York is not located on the Susquehanna River. The city of York is located on Codorus Creek. Both Lancaster and York counties share a border along the Susquehanna River and both cities by the end of the 1830s were connected to the Chesapeake Bay by a system of canals. The Codorus Creek had a system of locks from the city of York all the way down to the Susquehanna. In Lancaster County, the Conestoga River from Lancaster city all the way down to Safe Harbor (located on the Susquehanna River) had a system of locks. These canals enabled freight and people to be moved from those cities down to Havre De Grace, MD via the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal. Harrisburg was connected to the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal by way of the Pennsylvania Canal, which terminated at Columbia, Pa. At Columbia, barges were towed across the Susquehanna by mules along a covered bridge to the western shore (or vice versa) of the Susquehanna to Wrightsville, PA. The barges in Wrightsville were then transferred to the Susquehanna and Tidewater. So it was possible for people in Lancaster, York and Harrisburg to travel to Baltimore by boat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susque...idewater_Canal

The joke about the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal though is it was already obsolete the day it opened. By 1840, the railroads had already arrived in the area. Transporting freight and people by rail was much faster than traveling by boat via the canals. By the end of the 1850s, the canals on the lower Susquehanna were only lightly used as they fell out of favor among the merchants and businesses in places like Columbia, Lancaster, York, Harrisburg etc.

Your general point though about York being more connected to Baltimore when compared to Lancaster is accurate.

Cool info!

Always disappointed me there was no Amtrak line Baltimore-York-Harrisburg. Unfortunately, a lot of the ROW for that has probably been taken for a rail-to-trail, so the route would now be pretty circuitous to make that happen. Very much a low-hanging fruit option that should have been included in the recent Amtrak expansion announcement if we actually had forward-thinking leadership in the area.