Ardmore station (Pennsylvania)

Ardmore
Amtrak station
SEPTA Regional Rail commuter rail station
Location 75 Station Road and Anderson Avenue
Ardmore, PA 19003
Coordinates 40°00′30″N 75°17′25″W / 40.0083°N 75.2903°W / 40.0083; -75.2903Coordinates: 40°00′30″N 75°17′25″W / 40.0083°N 75.2903°W / 40.0083; -75.2903
Owned by Amtrak[1]
Operated by Amtrak & SEPTA
Line(s) Keystone Corridor (Main Line)
Amtrak:
  Keystone Service
SEPTA:
  Paoli/​Thorndale Line
Platforms 2 side platforms
Tracks 4
Connections SEPTA City Bus: 44
SEPTA Suburban Bus: 103, 105, 106, 115
Construction
Parking 196 spaces (109 permit, 87 public daily)
Bicycle facilities 3 racks (12 spaces)
Other information
Station code ARD (Amtrak)
Fare zone 2
History
Opened 1870[2]
Rebuilt 1950s
Electrified September 11, 1915[3]
Traffic
Passengers (FY 2017) 66,497[4] Decrease 2.6% (Amtrak)
Passengers (2012) 841 (weekday boardings)[5] (SEPTA)
Services
Preceding station   Amtrak   Following station
toward Harrisburg
Keystone Service
toward New York
SEPTA
toward Thorndale
Paoli/​Thorndale Line
Former services
Preceding station   Pennsylvania Railroad   Following station
toward Chicago
Main Line
toward Paoli
Paoli Line
Amtrak
toward Pittsburgh
Pennsylvanian
former limited service
toward New York

Ardmore station is a train station in Ardmore, Pennsylvania served by Amtrak and SEPTA Regional Rail. It is on Amtrak's Keystone Corridor Main Line and serves most Keystone Service trains, as well as most SEPTA Paoli/Thorndale Line trains. One Sunday eastbound Pennsylvanian trip formerly stopped in Ardmore, but this service ended on November 7, 2011, with the consolidation of the Monday-Saturday and Sunday eastbound Pennsylvanian trip into a daily trip. It is located at Station Road and Anderson Avenue in Ardmore and serves the western suburbs of Philadelphia. The station is a one-story brick building with a flat roof built in the 1950s, which replaced an 1870 building that burned down. There are plans to build a new transit-oriented development in the area, including a new station building.

Station and surroundings

An Amtrak QuikTrak machine is available in the station. SEPTA permit parking is available at the station, and the township provides additional metered parking in nearby lots.

This station is 8.5 track miles from Suburban Station. In 2011, the average total weekday SEPTA boardings at this station was 841 and the average total weekday SEPTA alightings was 834.[5]

Nearby attractions include the Suburban Square shopping center, Ardmore Farmers Market, Brownie's 23 East, and other businesses in the downtown Ardmore shopping district along Lancaster Avenue.

Trompe-l'oeil replica of PRR-era Ardmore train station sign.

Ardmore was the nearest station to the home of Stuart T. Saunders, the last CEO of both the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) until its 1968 merger with the New York Central and then of the Penn Central (PC) until its bankruptcy in 1976. Despite his proximity to the station, however, Saunders preferred to travel to his Philadelphia office by chauffeur-driven private car rather than riding his own trains. His detractors used this as an indication of both the inhospitable conditions of the train cars and management's detachment from the riding public.

Development

Lower Merion Township has considered plans to replace the station as part of a larger economic revitalization "transit oriented development" (TOD) project for the neighborhood. Parts of the plan, however, relied on using eminent domain to force the purchase of private property, which would then be transferred to a private developer. For this reason, it met significant opposition among some members of community.[6]

In 2008 the plan of developer Dranoff Properties[7] for the TOD project was accepted and the Philadelphia-based company was named to develop a $180 million mixed use project for the station area with ground breaking anticipated in 2012.[8] In August, 2010, the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program of the State of Pennsylvania made a $9 million grant to the project following an earlier $6 million grant made in 2008.[9]

Ardmore station (MP 8.5) on Amtrak's Keystone Corridor Philadelphia-Harrisburg "Main Line"

The old station

Ardmore station circa 1875

The old station at Ardmore was designed by the firm of Wilson Brothers and Company of Philadelphia as a two-story stone structure with a slate roof.[10] The walls were built of gneiss stone laid irregularly with sandstone lintels. It had a daylight basement by virtue of the land sloping to the rear, which served as housing for the agent, containing a bedroom, dining room, kitchen, and living room. The ground floor waiting room measured 20x35 feet, a ladies' room measuring 14x18 feet, a gentleman's smoking room 11x12 feet, a baggage room 8x12 feet, a telegraph office and ticket office of 9x18 feet, and a bedroom. The second story had three bedrooms and the signal tower.[10]

Station layout

Ardmore has two low-level side platforms with pathways connecting the platforms to the inner tracks.

G
Side platform, doors will open on the right
Track 4 ← Paoli/Thorndale Line toward Paoli, Malvern or Thorndale (Haverford)
← Keystone Service toward Harrisburg (Paoli)
Track 3 ← Paoli/Thorndale Line toward Paoli, Malvern or Thorndale (Haverford)
← Pennsylvanian do not stop here
Track 2 Pennsylvanian does not stop here →
Paoli/Thorndale Line toward Suburban Station or Temple University (Wynnewood) →
Track 1 Keystone Service toward Philadelphia or New York (Philadelphia) →
Paoli/Thorndale Line toward Suburban Station or Temple University (Wynnewood) →
Side platform, doors will open on the right
Street level Exit/entrance, station house, parking

References

  1. ↑ "Transportation Planning for the Philadelphia–Harrisburg "Keystone" Railroad Corridor" (PDF). Federal Railroad Administration. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 21, 2011. Retrieved 9 January 2013.
  2. ↑ Existing Stations in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
  3. ↑ Tatnall, Frank (Fall 2015). "A Century of Catenary". Classic Trains. 16 (3): 26.
  4. ↑ "Amtrak State Fact Sheet, FY2017, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania" (PDF). Amtrak. November 2017. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
  5. 1 2 "Fiscal Year 2011 Annual Service Plan" (PDF). SEPTA. pp. 71–72. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 February 2013. Retrieved 12 January 2013.
  6. ↑ Why the fuss about this block?, The Save Ardmore Coalition, retrieved 19 Feb 2008
  7. ↑ "Can Do Carl" MainLine Today. February, 2009
  8. ↑ "Ardmore Station" (The Ardmore Transit Oriented Development Project) ArdmoreStation.com
  9. ↑ "Pennsylvania invests $9M more into Dranoff’s Ardmore Station project" Philadelphia Business Journal, August 9, 2010
  10. 1 2 Berg, Walter G. (1893). Buildings and Structures of American Railroads. New York: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 315–316.
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