Southampton station is a former railroad station in

Southampton, Pennsylvania Southampton is an unincorporated community located in Upper Southampton Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Geography Southampton is 18 miles north, from the center of Philadelphia. It's ZIP Code is 18966. Portions of this ZIP Code can als ...

. Built by the

Reading Railroad The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and commercial rail transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states that operated from 1924 until its 1976 acquisition by Conrail. Commonly calle ...

in 1892, it later served

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 Philadelphi ...

's Fox Chase/Newtown Line.

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 coun ...

closed the station along with several others in 1983. It is located on Second Street Pike ( PA-232) near Knowles Avenue.

History

Built in 1892, Southampton station was a stop on the

's Newtown Line. It later became a part of

Fox Chase Rapid Transit Line The Fox Chase Line SEPTA Regional Rail service connecting Center City Philadelphia with Fox Chase. It uses the Fox Chase Branch, which branches off from the SEPTA Main Line at Newtown Junction north of the Wayne Junction station. It runs entirel ...

. The station and all of those north of

Fox Chase station Fox Chase station is a SEPTA Regional Rail station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Located near the intersection of Rhawn Street and Rockwell Avenue in the Fox Chase neighborhood, it is the current terminus of the Fox Chase Line. Fox Chase statio ...

were closed on January 18, 1983, due to failing diesel train equipment). In addition, a labor dispute began within the SEPTA organization when the transit operator inherited 1,700 displaced employees from

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 ...

. SEPTA insisted on uing transit operators from the

Broad Street Subway The Broad Street Line (BSL), also known as the Broad Street subway (BSS), Orange Line, or Broad Line, is a subway line owned by the city of Philadelphia and operated by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). The line r ...

to operate Fox Chase-Newtown diesel trains, while Conrail requested that railroad engineers run the service. When a federal court ruled that SEPTA had to use Conrail employees to offer job assurance, SEPTA cancelled Fox Chase-Newtown trains. Service in the diesel-only territory north of Fox Chase was cancelled at that time, and Southampton station still appears in publicly posted

tariffs A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and polic ...

. Although rail service was initially replaced with a Fox Chase-Newtown

shuttle bus A shuttle bus is a bus that travels a shorter route in comparison to most bus routes. Typically, shuttle buses travel in both directions between two points. Shuttle buses are designed to transport large groups of people who are all travellin ...

, patronage remained light, and the Fox Chase-Newtown shuttle bus service ended in 1999. As of 2023, surviving tracks have been removed and replaced with a rail-trail.

Fire

Three months after SEPTA assumed operations, on January 2, 1982, the crossing at Second Street Pike south of Southampton station was the site of a fiery crash between a train (Rail Diesel Car #9164, a self-propelled passenger car), an ARCO gasoline truck, and a car. Engineer Donald Williams died from multiple burns. Five people were also injured; the accident caused flames to rise 50 feet in the air and created a plume of black smoke visible for miles. Photographs appear to indicate the crossing signal equipment was working properly, with warning lights continuing to warn motorists after the collision occurred, but a report by the National Transportation Safety Board suggested the lights were intermittently working as the tank truck approached the crossing, as mentioned by eyewitnesses. SEPTA was using a single rail diesel car (RDC #9164), which was not equipped with signal excitation equipment required for single-car operation. The Reading Railroad had two RDCs equipped for single-car operation (nos. 9151 and 9152), which were transferred to SEPTA, neither of which was in use on this holiday weekend when rail traffic was especially light. Also, due to the acute angle of the railroad crossing and the buildings nearby, the truck driver could not see the RDC approaching from his right until stopping short of a collision was no longer possible. SEPTA general manager

David L. Gunn David L. Gunn (born June 21, 1937) is a transportation system administrator who has headed several significant railroads and transit systems in North America. He was director of operations of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA ...

ordered additional safety precautions, but service ceased just over a year after the accident.

References

External links

Newtown Line.pa-tec.org – PA-TEC study on resuming SEPTA commuter service between Fox Chase and Newtown
{{DEFAULTSORT:Southampton (Septa Station) Railway stations in the United States opened in 1892 Former SEPTA Regional Rail stations Former Reading Company stations Former railway stations in Bucks County, Pennsylvania Railway stations in the United States closed in 1983