The Franklin Street Station served the railroad from 1930 until 1981 when SEPTA diesel service ceased operations. From 1981 until 2013, the building sat vacant until BARTA acquired and refurbished the building for bus services. The plan was to alleviate overcrowded services at the BARTA Transportation Center located about a block away. –Wikipedia
Barta refurbished the building, but it still remains racant.… Read Full Article
Before planes were the main means of traveling during the holidays, many people took trains.
If you traveled as a passenger on the Reading Railroad, it would have been in a car like the one pictured below:
Did you ever use the railroads to travel for the holidays?… Read Full Article
In 1909, the city leaders celebrated with much fanfare the opening of the Spring Street Subway, a rail bridge that eliminated a dangerous Reading Railroad crossing – first for pedestrians and later for cars.
… Read Full ArticleThe Reading Railroad was well established in the area before city engineers considered building the subway.
So to construct it, crews had to dig under the railroad tracks and install steel and concrete to support the tracks and not disrupt the dozens of trains that moved through Reading daily.
It was deemed the “Swinging Bridge” Built in 1874 by the same firm that designed the Brooklyn Bridge, Reading’s rail bridge was heavily used by pedestrians to get over the train yard to Reading’s Outer Station. According to this Reading Eagle article,
… Read Full ArticleThe Outer Station, which stood off North Sixth Street, handled passenger and freight service on Reading Company lines.
The Orange Car was a fresh fruit and produce business along the Schuylkill River waterfront in Reading PA. Specifically it was located at 30 N. Front Street, at the intersection of Front and Washington. It was right down from Stichter Hardware and Schindlebeck’s Coal Yard. All kinds of fresh fruit and produce were brought here from Florida by rail. As you can see the tracks went right past the Orange Car, and goods were unloaded right from the freight car.… Read Full Article