Reading Company's Southampton Station What happened to the tracks?!?
This station was built by the Reading Company in 1892 and once saw Camelback's and RDC's traversing the line between Philadelphia (via Fox Chase) and Newtown, PA. The line itself was started in 1872 by a railroad called the Philadelphia & Montgomery County Railroad. That road was renamed the Philadelphia & Newtown Railroad Company in 1873. Following foreclosure, the line was reorganized as the Philadelphia, Newtown & New York Railroad Company. Though the railroad had intentions of reaching New York, it never reached further than Newtown, PA, arriving in 1878. The PN&NY was soon under lease to the P&R (Philadelphia & Reading Company) by 1879. The SEPTA commuter agency stopped serving the line north of Fox Chase (near Philadelphia) on January 14, 1983 as Fox Chase was as far as the line had been electrified, meaning passengers needed to transfer to RDC's to complete their trip. The last SEPTA train to run on the branch was a British BRE-Leyland diesel railbus, which made a test run to Newtown on the Branch on September 3, 1985. The battle to restore service on this amazingly scenic branch has officially been lost as the tracks, which were still here as recently as 2019, have been removed to allow the extension of the Pennypack rail trail. Ground breaking for the project was celebrated by county officials on Tuesday, October 15th, 2019.
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here for more images of Southampton through time...
