52nd Street station (SEPTA Regional Rail)

52nd Street
Westbound train at 52nd Street station in 1973
Location North 52nd Street & Landsdowne Avenue
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
 United States
Coordinates 39°58′40″N 75°13′35″W / 39.9779°N 75.2263°W / 39.9779; -75.2263Coordinates: 39°58′40″N 75°13′35″W / 39.9779°N 75.2263°W / 39.9779; -75.2263
Owned by Pennsylvania Railroad
Line(s) Pennsylvania Main Line
Paoli Line
Schuylkill Branch
Construction
Structure type Elevated
Platform levels 2
History
Opened 1902
Closed August 23, 1980[1]
Electrified 1930
Former services
Preceding station   Amtrak   Following station
toward Harrisburg
Silverliner Service
One westbound trip only
SEPTA
toward Thorndale
Paoli/​Thorndale Line
toward Cynwyd
Cynwyd Line
Pennsylvania Railroad
toward Paoli
Paoli Line
toward Hawes Avenue
Schuylkill Branch

52nd Street is a closed train station that was located at the intersection of North 52nd Street & Landsdowne Avenue (just north of Lancaster Avenue (US-30)) in the West Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.[2] It was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) at the junction of its Main Line and its Schuylkill Branch. Today, these lines are the SEPTA Regional Rail Paoli/Thorndale Line and Cynwyd Line, respectively.

History

The abandoned 52nd Street station in 1999

At 52nd Street, the Main Line is on an embankment at-grade, while the Schuylkill Branch is on an elevated structure including a Parker through truss spanning 388 feet (118 m) over the Main Line on an extreme skew.[3] A lit sign informed inbound passengers which platform the next train to Center City, Philadelphia would depart from. Only a few trains in each direction stopped at this station, mostly serving reverse commuters heading out to jobs in the Main Line suburbs in the morning and returning home to the city in the evening.

Through merger and bankruptcy, the station and the trains serving it passed from the PRR to the Penn Central to Conrail (the later under contract to SEPTA). The first westbound morning trip of Amtrak's Silverliner Service also stopped at the station.[4]

The station was burned by vandals on August 16, 1980. Conrail bused passengers until the 23rd, when SEPTA chose to outright close the station.[1] Proposals have been made to reopen the station, either in conjunction with projects such as the Schuylkill Valley Metro, or as part of community revitalization efforts.

References

  1. 1 2 Baer, Christopher T. (April 2015). "A GENERAL CHRONOLOGY OF THE SUCCESSORS OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY AND THEIR HISTORICAL CONTEXT: 1980-1989" (PDF). Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society.
  2. ↑ Amtrak All-American Schedules. Amtrak. April 29, 1973. p. 7 – via The Museum of Railway Timetables.
  3. ↑ Spivey, Justin M. (April 2001). "Pennsylvania Railroad, 52nd Street Bridge" (PDF). Historic American Engineering Record. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress. Retrieved February 2, 2014.
  4. ↑ All-America Schedules. Amtrak. November 30, 1975. p. 30 – via Museum of Railway Tmetables.
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