Bethlehem is a disused train station in

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Bethlehem is a city in Northampton and Lehigh Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, Bethlehem had a total population of 75,781. Of this, 55,639 were in Northampton County and 19, ...

. It was constructed by the

Central Railroad of New Jersey The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central or Jersey Central Lines , was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of ...

(CNJ) in 1873. Passenger service to the station ended in 1967. A restaurant opened within the station in 1976, and the building has continued to serve that role through several changes in ownership. The station is located on the north side of the

Lehigh River The Lehigh River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 tributary of the Delaware River in eastern Pennsylvania. The river flows in a generally southward pat ...

, near Monocacy Creek, east of Main Street and south of East Lehigh Street. Another disused station,

Union Station A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...

, is located on the south side of the Lehigh River.

History

Passenger service to Bethlehem over the

Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad The Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad is a defunct railroad that operated in eastern Pennsylvania during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The company was a subsidiary of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N), but for much of its lifetim ...

(L&S) began in 1868. The CNJ leased the L&S in 1871 in order to better compete with the

Lehigh Valley Railroad The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad built in the Northeastern United States to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Pennsylvania. The railroad was authorized on April 21, 1846 for freight and transportation of passengers, goods, w ...

, whose tracks ran along the opposite side of the Lehigh River. The current three-story building opened in 1873. The Bethlehem chapter of the

United States Junior Chamber of Commerce The United States Junior Chamber, also known as the Jaycees, JCs or JCI USA, is a Leadership development, leadership training, service organization and Civil society, civic organization for people between the ages of 18 and 40. It is a branch ...

(the Jaycees) leased the second floor in 1962 and undertook a restoration of the structure. Passenger service ended on August 18, 1967. The CNJ's

Harrisburg Harrisburg is the capital city of the Pennsylvania, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Dauphin County. With a population of 50,135 as of the 2021 census, Harrisburg is the List of c ...

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.Queen of the Valley The ''Queen of the Valley'' was a named train of the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) that ran between Jersey City, New Jersey, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, via the Lehigh Valley and Reading. The train took about 4 hours to traverse the ...

,'' and local service to Jersey City, New Jersey were the last trains out of the station. The "Lehigh Street Depot" restaurant, later known as the "Main Street Depot", opened on the first floor in 1976.

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busin ...

, successor to the CNJ, formally sold the property to the restaurant owners in 1982. The Main Street Depot closed in 2010; a new restaurant, "The Wooden Match", opened in 2011.

References

External links

{{commons category, Bethlehem (CNJ station)
The Wooden Match
Former Central Railroad of New Jersey stations Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Railway stations in the United States opened in 1873 Railway stations closed in 1967 Former railway stations in Pennsylvania