52nd Street (Pennsylvania Railroad station)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

52nd Street is a closed railroad station in the West Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) at the junction of its Main Line and its Schuylkill Branch. Today, these lines are the SEPTA Regional Rail R5 Paoli-Thorndale and R6 Cynwyd lines, respectively.

At 52nd Street, the Main Line is on an embankment at-grade, while the Schuylkill Branch is on an elevated structure. A lit sign informed inbound passengers which platform the next train to Center City, Philadelphia would depart from.

Through merger and bankruptcy, the station and the trains serving it passed from the PRR to the Penn Central to Conrail, which abandoned all service to the station in 1980. Proposals have been made to reopen the station, either in conjunction with projects such as the Schuylkill Valley Metro, or as part of community revitalization efforts, but none of these plans have yet come to fruition.