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Philadelphia is unique in one company providing high speed rail (Regional Rail Lines), Subway (Market Frankford, Broad Street, Broad Ridge Spur) and Trolley (subway surface, 1001,101,102) plus a former subway line to Camden, NJ now operated by a different Company (PATCO)

By Harry Kyriakodis, with information compiled, adapted and augmented from:
www.paconvention.com/f1b1.html; www.paconvention.com/d1i1.html;
www.e-architect.com/gov/tea21/readingterminal.asp; www.readingrailroad.org/rr_hist.htm;
www.trainweb.org/pt/reading.html; http:/2000.phily.com/inquirer/toward0613.asp;
www.rmsco.com/RTH.htm; www.libertynet.org/historic/pending.html;
and Reading Terminal and Market (Chelsea Publishing, 1994).

Although remembered primarily as a railroad, the Reading Company was a multifaceted industrial giant at its peak. It was originally chartered in 1833 as the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad (P&R) to transport anthracite coal to Philadelphia. Service started a few years later with the right-of-way going alongside the Schuylkill River through Reading to Pottsville, PA, a distance of 94 miles. Beginning in 1850, the pioneering line leased, purchased, or merged with numerous smaller railroads, thus evolving into a mighty corporation serving the densely industrialized areas of eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. Operations included coal mining, iron making, canal and sea-going transportation, and so on. With its huge complex of shops for locomotive and car building and repair, and its constant advancement of railroad technology, the Reading Railroad held a position of leadership in the railroad industry for over a century. In its heyday, the P&R offered more than 2600 miles of track for freight and passengers, and carried 25 million riders annually.

In the 1870s, the P&R established a subsidiary, the Philadelphia & Reading Coal and Iron Company, to gain control over the vast anthracite deposits being mined for shipment over its lines. When the company attempted to further expand by controlling rail lines into New England, New York financier and railroad tycoon J.P. Morgan pulled the financial rug out from under the Reading. The P&R went into receivership on February 20, 1893, with Morgan restructuring it three years later. This was one of several bankruptcies during the Reading Railroad's long and tortured history. By the early 20th Century, stock control of the Reading was held by the New York Central and B&O Railroads. However, the company was managed locally and had settled into its traditional role as a regional railroad, mainly a carrier of anthracite and passengers. The railroad was also known as the "Reading Lines."

Driven by stiff competition with the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Reading built Reading Terminal in Philadelphia as the company's headquarters and as the base for its expanding passenger rail system. The terminal headhouse—an eight-story Italian Renaissance palazzo with an ornate terra-cotta encrusted façade designed by Francis Kimball—was situated on Market Street to create a suitably grand entrance for the public. When the facility opened on January 29, 1893, it was acclaimed not only for the richness and elegance of its Victorian architecture, but also for the immense scale of its trainshed, the largest in the country for a brief period. The 13-track shed was designed by the Wilson Brothers, who had worked on the Pennsylvania Railroad's Broad Street Station years earlier. Ironically, the high cost of the terminal project was partly blamed for the P&R being placed into receivership in 1893.

As many as 45,000 passengers passed through the Reading Terminal complex every day during World War II. But by the 1950s, much of the terminal's attractive public space had been converted into dingy retail areas, and the facility had undergone at least one misguided "modernization," particularly to the headhouse's façade (in 1948). Much of the original granite cladding was broken or removed to accommodate installation of contemporary glass panels. The six large arches on the second floor along Market Street were bricked in and a simple brick parapet replaced the balustrade and ornate copper cornice. Plus, a stainless steel canopy was substituted for the old black marquee that bore the railroad's logo. Even neon lighting was installed!

Then years of neglect followed as the Reading experienced declining long-distance passenger service and only modest commuter rail service. Reading Terminal became a sad shadow of its former grandeur as one of the East Coast's great railroad hubs. And while this was happening, the Reading's freight business diminished as America turned away from coal as its major fuel. All this resulted in the Reading Company declaring bankruptcy for the fourth and final time on November 23, 1971. In 1976 (on April fool’s Day, no less), the 143-year old P&R ceased to exist as a railroad company. Most of the Reading's assets were transferred to Conrail, although SEPTA took over its lackluster commuter rail operations. Meanwhile, the forlorn station's decline continued.

The last train departed Reading Terminal on November 6, 1984. It was a nine-car special to Lansdale made up of 1931 Reading multiple-unit commuter cars painted in a blue and cream color scheme and called Blueliners. The closing ceremony was accompanied by much fanfare in Center City. Immediately thereafter, the dark and gloomy Reading Terminal was replaced by the new and shiny Market East Station, a block northeast and part of the early 1980s Commuter Rail Tunnel project.

Interestingly, the Reading Company emerged from bankruptcy on January 1, 1981, and redirected its efforts towards real estate development, mostly of property it owned along its old right-of-way. Nowadays, the company is a Los Angeles-based entertainment firm!

The Reading Terminal's fate was in serious jeopardy in the years following, with several plans offered for its demolition or adaptive reuse. Fortunately, it was located squarely within the Market Street East Redevelopment Area, a colossal urban renewal effort east of City Hall envisioned by city planner Edmund Bacon. After many years of negotiations with the Reading Company, the Redevelopment Authority of Philadelphia purchased the historic terminal so that it could be incorporated into the Pennsylvania Convention Center (PACC).

The Convention Center is the largest public construction project undertaken in Pennsylvania, and is one of few such major facilities actively integrated into an urban center. Work on the $525 million facility began in 1990. The PACC filled in and revitalized four derelict city blocks between Arch and Race Streets from 11th to 13th Streets, and fit in well with the area's street infrastructure and transportation routes. Its urban neighborhood to the east includes Philadelphia's Chinatown community, which did not want to be swallowed up by the complex and its attendant traffic. So an innovative scheme was devised to separate truck traffic from the neighborhood: an elevated truck dock from Vine Street uses part of the Reading Railroad's old right-of-way to service the Center's Exhibit Hall. The facility's façade facing Chinatown contains retail spaces that further connect the Convention Center to the neighborhood's commercial activity.

Since opening in 1993, the PACC has become so successful that there are now plans to extend it west to Broad Street. The goal is to expand the facility from its current total size of 1.3 million square feet to just over 2.2 million square feet with 650,000 to 700,000 square feet of exhibit hall space.

Conventioneers can easily access a variety of restaurants, shops, cultural institutions, and other nearby Center City amenities. Very popular with both visitors and downtown workers is the Reading Terminal Farmer’s Market on the ground level under the trainshed. This well-known tourist attraction contains stalls for a diverse selection of merchants, most selling fresh produce, choice meats and ethnic foods. The 12th and Market Street location has been in continuous use as a marketplace since 1860. A condition of the property's initial sale to the Reading Railroad was that the market would relocate to its original location after the terminal overhead was completed. The Reading Terminal Market maintains its historic ambiance today, even after having been renovated in the early 1990s to meet modern building codes. Thousands of Philadelphians and tourists pass through the lively marketplace every week.

The abandoned Reading Terminal trainshed was rehabilitated and converted into the PACC's Grand Hall ballroom. It is the oldest surviving single-span arched trainshed roof structure in the world, as well as the only one of its kind left in the United States. The shed was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976. Furthermore, according to architect Hyman Myers of the Vitetta Group "The trainshed was the keystone of the Convention Center project." There were hardly any other choices to reuse such a huge building—without the renovation the building probably couldn’t have been saved. Also, the renovation of the trainshed had a ripple effect. By saving and reusing the trainshed, the oldest operational farmer’s market in the U.S. was saved..."

Historical design cues are incorporated throughout the facility and especially within the trainshed. While its exterior was restored to original appearance, a free-standing "building within a building" was added inside to contain meeting rooms and a ballroom, yet still preserving a sense of the shed’s historic open quality. The Grand Hall has a terrazzo and marble floor with ten pairs of stainless steel rails inserted to represent the thirteen train tracks that had once been there. And twelve large pylons providing HVAC air intake, lighting and power mimic the former station's train bumpers. The iron trusses overhead were repaired and painted their original color, and the original south curtain wall of glass and copper was cleaned and restored. Murals on the wall facing the Grand Hall depict classic Reading Railroad locomotives. The trainshed is connected to the PACC's Exhibit Hall by a pedestrian bridge over Arch Street located in the exact place where tracks used to enter and exit the shed.

The Reading Terminal headhouse revealed itself to be quite a handsome edifice once cleaned of its generations of dirt and with its original façade restored. The building's windows were replaced, its exterior granite cladding and terra cotta details were repaired or replaced, and all masonry joints were repointed. A new anodized aluminum cornice was installed that matches the shape and profile of the original. Interior renovation work included extensive demolition to create an open multi-level atrium with escalator, grand stair and skylights. This public atrium provides direct access to the Grand Hall, Market East Station, the Gallery, and the area's extensive underground pedestrian concourse network.

The headhouse's old entrance lobby on Market Street reopened in 1998. A Hard Rock Café opened in part of the ground floor the same year. The rest of the historic structure is now part of the Philadelphia Marriott Hotel across 12th Street, connected by a foot bridge over the street. The hotel expanded into the long-abandoned upper floors of the headhouse, creating meeting rooms and 210 new guestrooms by demolishing the building's old partitions and ceilings. An elegant ballroom on the second floor has a 35-foot vaulted ceiling and occupies the space of the station's former passenger waiting room, as well as the Horn & Hardart automat that once served hungry Reading Railroad passengers!

R4 - Swampoodle Connection