52nd Street is a closed

train station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing s ...

that was located at the intersection of North 52nd Street & Merion Avenue (just north of Lancaster Avenue ( US-30)) in the

West Philadelphia West Philadelphia, nicknamed West Philly, is a section of the city of Philadelphia. Alhough there are no officially defined boundaries, it is generally considered to reach from the western shore of the Schuylkill River, to City Avenue to the nort ...

section of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) at the junction of its Main Line and its

Schuylkill Branch The Schuylkill Branch was a rail line owned and operated by the former Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The line ran from the Philadelphia to Harrisburg Main Line at 52nd Street in Philadelphia north via Norristown, ...

. Today, these lines are the

SEPTA Regional Rail The SEPTA Regional Rail system is a commuter rail network owned by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority and serving the Philadelphia Metropolitan area. The system has 13 branches and more than 150 active stations in Philadelp ...

Paoli/Thorndale Line The Paoli/Thorndale Line, or R5 commonly known as the Main Line, is a SEPTA Regional Rail service running from Center City Philadelphia through Montgomery County and Delaware County to Thorndale in Chester County. It operates along the far eas ...

and

Cynwyd Line The Cynwyd Line is a SEPTA Regional Rail line from Center City Philadelphia to Cynwyd in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Originally known as the Ivy Ridge Line, service was truncated on May 17, 1986, at its current terminus at Cynwyd. Trac ...

, respectively.

History

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 over the Main Line on an extreme skew. A lit sign informed inbound passengers which platform the next train to

Center City, Philadelphia Center City includes the central business district and central neighborhoods of Philadelphia. It comprises the area that made up the City of Philadelphia prior to the Act of Consolidation, 1854, which extended the city borders to be coterminous wi ...

would depart from. Only a few trains in each direction stopped at this station, mostly serving

reverse commute A reverse commute is a round trip, regularly taken, from an urban area to a suburban one in the morning, and returning in the evening. It is almost universally applied to trips to work in the suburbs from homes in the city. This is in opposition to ...

rs 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 The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania, New York Central and the ...

to Conrail (the later under contract to

SEPTA The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) is a regional public transportation authority that operates bus, rapid transit, commuter rail, light rail, and electric trolleybus services for nearly 4 million people in five c ...

). The first westbound morning trip of Amtrak's ''

Silverliner Service Amtrak's ''Keystone Service'' provides frequent regional passenger train service between the Harrisburg Transportation Center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, running along the Philadelphia to Harrisburg Ma ...

'' also stopped at the station. The station was burned by vandals on August 16, 1980. Conrail bused passengers until the 23rd, when SEPTA chose to outright close the station. The station came down in 1995 as part of revitalization efforts. Proposals have been made to reopen the station, either in conjunction with projects such as the

Schuylkill Valley Metro Schuylkill River Passenger Rail is a proposed passenger train service along the Schuylkill River between Philadelphia and Reading, Pennsylvania, with intermediate stops in Norristown, King of Prussia, Phoenixville, and Pottstown. Passenger trains ...

, or as part of community revitalization efforts.

References

External links

Abandoned 52nd Street PRR Station (WorldNYCSubway.org)
* {{SEPTA Regional Rail stations Former Pennsylvania Railroad stations Railway stations closed in 1980 Philadelphia to Harrisburg Main Line Railway stations in the United States opened in 1902 Former Amtrak stations in Pennsylvania 1902 establishments in Pennsylvania 1980 disestablishments in Pennsylvania Former SEPTA Regional Rail stations Former railway stations in Philadelphia