| George School SEPTA regional rail |
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The George School station site as viewed in October 2009. |
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| Station statistics | |||||||||||
| Address | George School, Middletown, Pennsylvania | ||||||||||
| Lines | |||||||||||
| Structure | demolished | ||||||||||
| Tracks | 1 | ||||||||||
| Other information | |||||||||||
| Opened | 1905 | ||||||||||
| Closed | January 14, 1983 | ||||||||||
| Electrified | no | ||||||||||
| Owned by | SEPTA | ||||||||||
| Formerly | Reading Railroad | ||||||||||
| Services | |||||||||||
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George School is a closed railroad station located along SEPTA's Fox Chase/Newtown Line located at George School, a private Quaker boarding and day high school in Middletown, Pennsylvania.
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George School Station was a stop on the Reading Railroad's Newtown Line. It later became a part of SEPTA's Fox Chase Rapid Transit Line. The station, and all of those north of Fox Chase, was closed on January 14, 1983,[1] due to failing diesel train equipment SEPTA had little desire to rehabilitate.
In addition, a labor dispute began within the SEPTA organization when the transit operator inherited 1,700 displaced employees from Conrail. SEPTA insisted on utilizing transit operators from the Broad Street Subway to operate Fox Chase-Newtown diesel trains, while Conrail requested that railroad motormen run the service. When a federal court ruled that SEPTA had to use Conrail employees in order to offer job assurance, SEPTA cancelled Fox Chase-Newtown trains.[2] Service in the diesel-only territory north of Fox Chase was "temporarily suspended" at that time, and George School Station still appears in publicly posted tariffs.[3]
Although rail service was initially replaced with a Fox Chase-Newtown shuttle bus, patronage remained light. The traveling public never saw a bus service as a suitable replacement for a rail service, and the Fox Chase-Newtown shuttle bus service ended in 1999.
In the ensuing years, there has been interest in resuming passenger service by Bucks County officials. The Newtown Board of Supervisors has repeatedly pushed for the resumption of regular commuter service since 1983, with the board passing a resolution in December 2009 in support of the trains.[4] Newtown has also explored the option of utilizing electric/diesel locomotives on the branch, which would be considerably less expensive than electrifying the line.[5]
In September 2009, the Southampton-based Pennsylvania Transit Expansion Coalition (PA-TEC) began discussions with township officials along the railway, as well as SEPTA officials, about the realistic possibility of resuming even minimal passenger service to relieve traffic congestion in the region. Plans call for completing the electrification to Newtown, as originally planned in the late 1970s.
PA-TEC's efforts have received bipartisan support by both Bucks and Montgomery County officials, as well as at the state level, despite SEPTA's overall reservations. However, SEPTA has also confirmed that they are indeed open to revisiting the line if there is political support in both counties.[6]
George School's Director of Operations Mike Gersie also expressed his interest in the resumption of passenger service along the line.[7]
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