Malvern station is a

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 ...

and a former

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...

station in

Malvern, Pennsylvania Malvern is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania. It is west of Philadelphia. The population was 3,419 at the 2020 census. The borough is bordered by Paoli Pike on the south, Sugartown Road on the west, Willistown Township on the east, an ...

. Located at West King Road and North Warren Avenue, it serves most

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 ...

trains. Until 1998, some ''

Keystone 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 Mai ...

'' trains stopped here as well. There are 323 parking spaces at the station for daily parking. This station is 21.8 track miles from

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

Suburban Station Suburban Station is an art deco office building and underground commuter rail station in Penn Center, Philadelphia. Its official SEPTA address is 16th Street and JFK Boulevard. The station is owned and operated by SEPTA and is one of the three ...

. In 2017, the average total weekday boardings at this station was 811, and the average total weekday alightings was 825. Malvern is also the western terminal of the line on Sundays.

History

The station was originally built in 1900 by the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

. In 1968, it merged with its longtime rival

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mi ...

to form the

Penn Central Railroad 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 ...

. With railroad passenger service declining in the United States, passenger service was acquired by

in 1971 which ran '' Keystone'' and ''Keystone State Express'' trains. Penn Central continued to struggle to provide commuter service until it was acquired by

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 bus ...

in 1976, and

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 ...

in 1983. SEPTA designated this as the R5 Paoli/Thorndale line. In 2010 SEPTA began construction of a new passenger access tunnel along with handicap ramps and stairways to the platforms. The project included improved parking lots. SEPTA has received frequent criticism for spending $9.2 million to build the ramps because there is currently no way for a person in a wheelchair to get from the platform to the train. A person in a wheelchair, as of now, could only get from the parking lot to the station platform.

Station layout

Malvern has two low-level

side platform A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platfo ...

s. Some SEPTA trains terminate/originate here.

Gallery

Malvern Station Pennsylvania 2018a.jpg, Station entrance Malvern Station Pennsylvania 2018b.jpg, Handicap ramps Malvern Station Pennsylvania 2018c.jpg, Station signage Malvern Station Pennsylvania 2018d.jpg, Westbound train Malvern Station Pennsylvania.jpg, Station building

References

External links

SEPTA – Malvern StationOld PRR Malvern Station photos

Station from Google Maps Street View
SEPTA Regional Rail stations Former Pennsylvania Railroad stations Railway stations in Chester County, Pennsylvania Railway stations in the United States opened in 1900 Philadelphia to Harrisburg Main Line {{SEPTA-stub