Reading Viaduct - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Reading Viaduct is the common name for an abandoned railroad viaduct

Viaduct

A viaduct is a bridge composed of several small spans. The term viaduct is derived from the Latin via for road and ducere to lead something. However, the Ancient Romans did not use that term per se; it is a modern derivation from an analogy with aqueduct. Like the Roman aqueducts, many early...

in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

, formerly owned by the Philadelphia and Reading Railway

Reading Company

The Reading Company , usually called the Reading Railroad, officially the Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road and then the Philadelphia and Reading Railway until 1924, operated in southeast Pennsylvania and neighboring states...

. It opened in 1893, and was built by the Philadelphia and Reading Terminal Railroad as an approach to the new Reading Terminal

Reading Terminal

The Reading Terminal is a complex of buildings located in the Market East section of Center City in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States...

.

The viaduct heads north from Reading Terminal and forks, with a spur heading northwest to the old mainline to Reading, Pennsylvania

Reading, Pennsylvania

Reading is a city in southeastern Pennsylvania, USA, and seat of Berks County. Reading is the principal city of the Greater Reading Area and had a population of 88,082 as of the 2010 census, making it the fifth most populated city in the state after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown and Erie,...

, and the main viaduct continuing north, merging with the current SEPTA

Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority is a metropolitan transportation authority that operates various forms of public transit—bus, subway and elevated rail, commuter rail, light rail, and electric trolley bus—that serve 3.9 million people in and around Philadelphia,...

line. Except for a gap caused by the construction of the Vine Street Expressway (I-676

Interstate 676

Interstate 676 is an Interstate Highway that serves as a major thoroughfare through Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where it is known as the Vine Street Expressway, and Camden, New Jersey, where it is known as the northern segment of the North–South Freeway, as well as the Martin Luther King Jr....

/US 30), and a few blocks at the north end, the viaduct still exists.

The Philadelphia and Reading Terminal Railroad was incorporated on April 13, 1888, leased by the Philadelphia and Reading Railway on May 1, 1891, and soon began construction. The viaduct and terminal opened on January 29, 1893.

History

In 1833, based on William Hasell Wilson's survey, the state-owned Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, the predecessor of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), decided to locate its terminus within the limits of the City of Philadelphia, at Broad and Callowhill Streets.

In 1834, at Belmont, the P&C built the Columbia Bridge and Belmont Plane and began operating the ‘Main Line of Public Works.’ The following year, the privately-owned Philadelphia & Reading (P&R), making its way southeast along the west bank of the Schuylkill from Reading, also used the Columbia Bridge to approach Philadelphia.

East of the bridge, in Fairmount, the P&C and P&R used the city-owned City Railroad (City Branch), to the reach their city center depots. The line looped over toward North 13th Street at Girard Avenue, then along Pennsylvania Avenue. At Hamilton Street, the tracks veered east along Nobel Street. Near Broad, the tracks turned south towards the terminals of the two lines: the P&C's at the southeast corner of Broad and Callowhill, the P&R's at Broad and Cherry. The City Railroad continued east along Willow Street as the Northern Liberties & Penn Township Railroad to the Delaware River, serving the growing port.

In 1850, the Belmont Plane, though considered an engineering feat in 1834 (2805 feet (855 m) long on a 7% grade), proved problematic. The P&C, having rerouted away from the Belmont Plane, sold it and the Columbia Bridge and the City Branch to the P&R.

In 1857, the entire Main Line of Public Works was bought by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR).

In 1859, in December, the P&R's new depot opened at Broad and Callowhill. For about three decades, the City Branch operated as a vital, albeit problematic, railroad serving a hugely industrialized freight corridor and busy passenger terminals.

By 1890, some of the Callowhill area industries along the City Branch with rail service included the Knickerbocker Ice Co., the Philadelphia Grain Elevator Co., Bement-Pond, Rush & Muhlenberg, Wm. Sellers, A. Whitney & Sons Car Wheel, and the Baldwin Locomotive Works

Baldwin Locomotive Works

The Baldwin Locomotive Works was an American builder of railroad locomotives. It was located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, originally, and later in nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania. Although the company was very successful as a producer of steam locomotives, its transition to the production of...

, which took up 17 acres (6.9 ha) alone. The two busiest P&R freight terminals in Philadelphia are along the City Branch, one at Willow and Nobel and the largest at Broad and Callowhill. The P&R also maintained a large coal yard at 11th and Callowhill.

On December 26, 1890, P&R president Archibald Angus McLeod persuaded the mayor of Philadelphia to approve the building of the Terminal Station and office building at 12th and Market Streets. For one million dollars, the P&R purchases the 1653 open-air market with assurances to relocate it. For the privilege, the P&R worked toward a plan to eliminate all grade crossings on the City Branch and along the 9th Street Branch (the former Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Railroad). Construction began in early 1891.

In 1893, The P&R opened the grandiose Reading Terminal in January. The Italianate head-house was designed by New York architect Francis H. Kimball. Wilson Bros. & Company provided the design engineering for the 13-track trainshed, the largest single-span trainshed constructed till then. The space beneath the trainshed accommodated the public market. From the terminal, the tracks of the 9th Street Branch to Green Street were elevated on a system of four-track steel viaducts with plate girder spans and on fill between concrete and stone retaining walls. North of Green Street, the tracks descended to street level at Fairmount Avenue. From that point, along the 4.3 miles (6.9 km) to Wayne Junction, there remain 28 grade crossings.

In 1894, plans were approved for the depression of the City Branch — “tracks and yards of the P&R between Broad & 30th Streets, including the north side of Nobel street and Callowhill street and between Eleventh and Broad streets: the alteration of the lines and grades of the tracks of the Philadelphia & Reading Terminal Railroad Co. east of Broad street and between Nobel and Carlton street.”

By 1900, the track-depression project was completed; upstate passenger trains once again traversed the busy corridor then up into the Reading Terminal.

In 1911, the vast grade separation projects were completed. All passenger traffic was rerouted over the now grade-crossing-free 9th Street Branch, and the City Branch settled into a freight-oriented role. The busy passenger lines of the 9th Street Branch funneled countless trains and travelers to and from the vast trainshed with safety and dispatch. Traffic was so great that in 1929 construction begins on electrification of the branch and much of the commuter-hauling network.

The extensive work of creating these grade separation projects was extensively covered in the Proceedings of the Engineers' Club of Philadelphia (volume 16, page 1) in “Pennsylvania Avenue Subway and Tunnel” based on a paper read by George Webster on October 15, 1898 and in the Journal of the Engineers Society of Pennsylvania (volume 8, page 303) in an article titled “Grade Separation — Two Distinct Methods” based on a paper delivered on November 16, 1916 by Samuel Wagner, Chief Engineer of the P&R.

In July 1981, the last intercity passenger services ended with the final runs to Pottsville, Bethlehem and Newark, New Jersey.

In 1984, the Reading Terminal closed, and Philadelphia's Center City Commuter Tunnel opened. The train shed was incorporated into the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

In 1992, the last customer—the Philadelphia Inquirer—moved its printing shop to Conshohocken. The need for incoming carloads of Canadian newsprint ending, and the rails of the City Branch were dismantled.

History

See also