52nd Street (Pennsylvania Railroad station)

52nd Street
Former Amtrak inter-city rail station Former Pennsylvania Railroad inter-city rail station
Site of the former 52nd Street station
Location	North 52nd Street & Landsdowne Avenue Philadelphia, Pennsylvania  United States
Coordinates	39°58′40″N 75°13′35″W / 39.9779°N 75.2263°WCoordinates: 39°58′40″N 75°13′35″W / 39.9779°N 75.2263°W
Owned by	Pennsylvania Railroad
Line(s)	Pennsylvania Main Line Paoli Line Schuylkill Branch
Construction
Structure type	At-grade and grade separated
Platform levels	2
History
Opened	1902
Closed	1980
Electrified	1930
Services
Former services   Preceding station   Amtrak   Following station Overbrook toward Harrisburg Silverliner Service Philadelphia toward New York City Pennsylvania Railroad Overbrook toward Chicago Main Line Philadelphia toward New York City or Exchange Place Overbrook toward Paoli Paoli Line Philadelphia toward Suburban Station Wynnefield Avenue toward Pottsville Schuylkill Branch

52nd Street is a closed train station that was located at the intersection of North 52nd Street & Landsdowne Avenue^[1] (just north of Lancaster Avenue [US-30]) in the West Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. 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.

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.^[2] 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, which abandoned all service to the station in 1980. 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.

From 1975 to 1980 the station was served by Amtrak's (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) Silverliner Service.^[3] In 1981 the Silverliner Service was re-branded the Keystone Service and all Amtrak service to the station was dropped.

References

1. Amtrak (29 Apr 1973). "Amtrak All-American Schedules". timetables.org. The Museum of Railway Timetables. p. 7. Retrieved 7 Jun 2014.
2. 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.
3. Amtrak (29 Oct 1978). "National Timetables". timetables.org. The Museum of Railway Timetables. p. 20. Retrieved 7 Jun 2014.

External links

• Abandoned 52nd Street PRR Station (WorldNYCSubway.org)
• Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) No. PA-546, "Pennsylvania Railroad, 52nd Street Bridge, North Fifty-second Street at Lancaster Avenue, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA", 16 photos, 4 data pages, 2 photo caption pages