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![A Brief History of the Atlantic City Air Line... [FICTION]](http://d.furaffinity.net/art/marmelmm/stories/1676856437/1351381009.thumbnail.marmelmm_acair-line.rtf.gif "Click to change the View")
A Brief History of the Atlantic City Air Line... [FICTION]
The current Port Authority/New Jersey Transit "Shore Service" rail network, offering smooth, electric powered high platform service from Center City to Atlantic City, Ocean City, Wildwood, Cape May and points inbetween, owes its existence to the vision of J. Wellington Wagstaff II, the so called "Boy Baron of the Bourse."
Wagstaff, it will be recalled, was remarkably priescent before Black Tuesday of 1929; not only had he sold his holdings a month beforehand, but he managed to quintuple the family millions by short selling blue-chip stocks.
Obviously, a financial genius like that would be justfied in simply sitting back and relaxing in his penthouse suite on Locust Street just west of Rittenhouse Square.
But Wagstaff, known to his friends and cronies as "J.W.", had something else in mind. Specifically, his penthouse suite at the Traymore Hotel in Atlantic City.
He wanted his own private train to pick him up at his Philadelphia digs and transport him to the Traymore without switching trains, taking ferries or bothering with the DelAir bridge north of town.
But how?
The opening of the Delaware River Bridge Line was the answer. When this rapid transit service opened in 1936, running between 8th and Market Streets and Camden, there had been talk of extending the electrification all the way to Atlantic City, but funding had not been forthcoming.
Wagstaff, and his millions, were going to change that...
Story © moi. Thumbnail courtesy of the Rockhill Trolley Museum.
Wagstaff, it will be recalled, was remarkably priescent before Black Tuesday of 1929; not only had he sold his holdings a month beforehand, but he managed to quintuple the family millions by short selling blue-chip stocks.
Obviously, a financial genius like that would be justfied in simply sitting back and relaxing in his penthouse suite on Locust Street just west of Rittenhouse Square.
But Wagstaff, known to his friends and cronies as "J.W.", had something else in mind. Specifically, his penthouse suite at the Traymore Hotel in Atlantic City.
He wanted his own private train to pick him up at his Philadelphia digs and transport him to the Traymore without switching trains, taking ferries or bothering with the DelAir bridge north of town.
But how?
The opening of the Delaware River Bridge Line was the answer. When this rapid transit service opened in 1936, running between 8th and Market Streets and Camden, there had been talk of extending the electrification all the way to Atlantic City, but funding had not been forthcoming.
Wagstaff, and his millions, were going to change that...
Story © moi. Thumbnail courtesy of the Rockhill Trolley Museum.
Category Story / Miscellaneous
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 120 x 70px
File Size 35.6 kB
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