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Suburban Station has seven tracks and 5 high island platforms. Tracks and platforms are:

* Track 1 could open up on the island with track 0 or track 2 but track 2 island platform is customary. Track 4 could open up on the island with track 5 but track 3 island platform is customary.

This station is currently being renovated to its original appearance with modern amenities including air conditioning and full ADA.

Suburban Station is a large underground rail station running between 15th and 18th Streets. The station was originally planned to have twelve tracks, rather than eight, but interference with the Chinese wall’s foundations to the south prevented it from being built that wide. Also, Suburban Station was designed so that its two northern-most tracks could be extended eastward towards a proposed tunnel under the Delaware River to connect to Pennsylvania Railroad lines out of Camden, New Jersey. This was never done. An intricate mezzanine level provides space for shops, ticket offices, and services for Center City workers and visitors, as well as many connections to the area's extensive underground concourse system. Suburban Station opened for traffic on September 28, 1930, the same day as 30th Street Station's commuter station.

The 22-story office building above the rail station is situated between 16th and 17th Streets and Cuthbert Street and J.F.K. Boulevard (formerly Pennsylvania Boulevard and Filbert Street). Constructed of gray limestone with black marble ends decorated in ornate bronze and gold-colored fixtures with red marble inlays, it is one of the finest examples anywhere of the 1920s and 1930s Art Deco architectural style. The immense structure is also a standard of an integrated office building and passenger terminal. The PRR leased twenty floors of the edifice as convenient downtown office space. There are beautiful murals inside several entrances.

From conception and for many years following, the complex was called "Broad Street Suburban Station," mainly for continuity with Broad Street Station. It was renamed "Suburban Station" in the early 1950s and then "Penn Center Suburban Station" in the late 1960s. Now officially called "One Penn Center at Suburban Station," the office building above has been renovated to be both economically and operationally divorced from the station below. The structure was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 9, 1985. SEPTA estimates that 100,000 people pass through Suburban Station every day, on foot and on almost 500 Regional Rail commuter trains. There are plans for a $42 million renovation of the station, with the enlargement of retail space and the installation of air conditioning and elevators.

The subway serving Suburban Station originally ended near 15th Street. The street level above was made into a park to serve as a transition between Penn Square and the Ben Franklin Parkway. The Philadelphia Visitors Center was built in 1960 within the park, above the east end of the station. (This flying saucer-shaped structure is slated to close in a few years.) Also, a multi-level parking garage is under the square, northeast of Suburban Station. This garage was constructed in 1967 when Philadelphia architect Vincent Kling redesigned the entire park, which was then renamed "John F. Kennedy Plaza" to honor the slain president. (The city also changed the name of Pennsylvania Boulevard to "John F. Kennedy Boulevard," after having extended the street to the front of 30th Street Station by erecting a vehicular bridge over the Schuylkill River.) J.F.K. Plaza is also known as "Love Park" since Robert Indiana's famous LOVE statue is located there. A major redesign of plaza has been proposed, with the goal of transforming it into an urban showplace friendly to both Center City workers and tourists.

The completion of Suburban and 30th Street Stations should have been the end of Broad Street Station and the Chinese wall, but the Depression and World War II delayed their demolition until the 1950s. In addition, 30th Street Station did not have enough tracks to handle capacity until around that time, and Broad Street Station was still a more convenient way into town. But on April 27, 1952, the last train departed the station, ceremoniously accompanied by Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra in a farewell concert. Demolition started soon after that. While there is only a historical marker across City Hall indicating the old terminal's site, parts of the Chinese wall can still be seen between J.F.K. Boulevard and the replacement railroad viaduct. In fact, a portion of the Wall supports the boulevard from around 22nd Street to the Schuylkill River, as well as a narrow roadside park that has been created there. Also, several large pieces of artwork in Broad Street Station were transferred to 30th Street Station, where they can still be admired by harried travelers. One such piece is the large Progress of Transportation (1895) plaster mural in the station's north arcade.

Much of the remaining space where the Chinese wall used to be was developed into the Penn Center complex. The Philadelphia Improvements had always supposed that a large collection of office buildings would be built on the site of the old viaduct, but formal plans for the Center did not appear until 1947. That was the year of the Better Philadelphia Exhibition, a large display of maps and models showing grand plans for Center City from the fledgling Philadelphia Planning Commission and other reform-minded agencies and organizations. Visionary city planner Edmund Bacon included Penn Center as part of the display, which was housed in Gimbels department store and viewed by nearly 400,000 people.

Penn Center's construction generated much excitement in the 1950s. Philadelphians saw the complex as a "progressive" vision of urban renewal. Its initial stages were designed by Bacon and Kling. Six Penn Center (at 17th Street) was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad itself and replaced Broad Street Station as the company’s headquarters. Two and Three Penn Center were constructed in the space once occupied by the station's trainshed and tracks. Dilworth Plaza on the west side of City Hall was also built during that period and occupies the site of the station headhouse. In addition, the traffic circle around Penn Square was moved west to join with 15th Street. Five, Seven and Four Penn Center came later, along with an ice skating rink at 17th Street and J.F.K. Boulevard. The rink was replaced with Eight Penn Center in the 1970s. Other major office buildings have been erected along and between Market Street and J.F.K. Boulevard since then. Thus, the Philadelphia Improvements plan of the 1920s was not fully realized until over four decades later.

Almost all Penn Center buildings and nearby subway and commuter rail stations are linked together by the vast underground pedestrian concourse network running under J.F.K. Boulevard, Market Street, and most area cross streets, walkways and courtyards. Edmund Bacon's concept of a hidden, weather-protected concourse connecting urban office, transportation and retail facilities was innovative at the time and influenced other cities, as well as Philadelphia's subsequent Market East Redevelopment. Furthermore, the Penn Center complex includes an underground roadway that trucks use to service and supply the buildings. This significantly reduces the number of trucks traveling over and loading/unloading on the streets above. The entrance to this no-outlet road (called Commerce Street) is on 19th Street between Market Street and J.F.K. Boulevard.

Unfortunately, the Pennsylvania Railroad significantly compromised Bacon's plan—with enlarged buildings and less open space—to be more economically rewarding to the company. Thus, Penn Center and the underground concourse network became less pedestrian friendly and less attractive overall. Legitimate concerns about crime and homelessness in the area became evident as the years passed. And this type of overwhelmingly bold city-sculpting has been somewhat discredited since the Center's construction. In fact, Penn Center has been cited as an example of poor city planning, lamentable in the spare geometry of its boxy buildings and its disregard for the traditional street's vitality. However, there are plans to improve and enhance Penn Center and its concourse system. This should help make getting around the complex more appealing to downtown workers.

The Municipal Services Building, designed by Vincent Kling, is very much integrated into the concourse system. It was constructed from 1962 to 1965 on Reyburn Plaza, north of City Hall. There had been plans for a new city office building on that site before the Depression, but they were not implemented until after most of the privately-developed buildings of Penn Center were completed. Plus, several large buildings were built over the subway on the blocks between 20th Street and Suburban Station. One of them is Kennedy House, a 30-story co-operative apartment completed in 1969.

The Pennsylvania Railroad merged with the New York Central in 1968 to form the Penn Central Railroad. Two years later, Penn Central went bankrupt and its freight, passenger and commuter services were spilt. Its freight lines eventually became Conrail (with the addition of a few more railroads), passenger service went to Amtrak, and local commuter lines went to Conrail and then to SEPTA in 1983. The rival Reading Railroad also went bankrupt (in 1971) and SEPTA took over its commuter rail network in 1976. With the longstanding competition between the PRR and the Reading Company eliminated by the financial collapse of both railroads, SEPTA began operating its Regional Rail service over the two systems without distinction. A few years later, in 1984, Suburban Station changed from a stub-end station to a through-station when the Commuter Rail Tunnel joined the formerly opposed Pennsylvania and Reading Railroad systems. This in effect was the final chapter of the Philadelphia Passenger Terminal Improvements Projects.