Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Passenger Station (Philadelphia)

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Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
Passenger Station
(Philadelphia)
B & OPassengerStationPhiladelphia.jpg
View from the northeast (1959)
Data
Design Through station
opening 1886
Conveyance 1958
location
City / municipality Philadelphia
State Pennsylvania
Country United States
Coordinates 39 ° 57 '7 "  N , 75 ° 10' 49"  W Coordinates: 39 ° 57 '7 "  N , 75 ° 10' 49"  W.
Railway lines
  • CSX Philadelphia Subdivision
    (formerly B&O Philadelphia Division)
List of train stations in the United States
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The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Passenger Station (German: Baltimore-and-Ohio-Personenbahnhof ), also called 24th Street Station , was a passenger and service station in Philadelphia in the US state of Pennsylvania . It served the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) as the central passenger station in the city and was in operation from 1886 to 1958.

Location and transport links

The station was on the east bank of the Schuylkill, southwest of the corner of 24th Street and Chestnut Street. He was one block south of Market Street, the city's main east-west axis. He was also within sight of the 30th Street Station of B&O competitor Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) on the opposite bank of the river.

The station was designed as a through station on the Baltimore - Jersey City route and was located at the Philadelphia Division of the B&O and today's CSX Philadelphia Subdivision. This route reached the city from the southwest, crossed the Schuylkill and ran along its east bank to the north. About a mile (1.6 km) north of the station they finally met a line of the Reading Railroad , today's CSX Trenton Subdivision, on whose tracks the trains to Jersey City operated.

Reception building

The station building was east of the through tracks and immediately south of Chestnut Street. The entrance faced this street, so that the street and track sides were at right angles to each other. Since Chestnut Street crossed a bridge over the tracks and the Schuylkill, the entrance was on the first floor. A restaurant and several waiting rooms were distributed over the two floors. On the south side there was originally a large platform hall, which apparently still housed a few butt tracks to the south. Furthermore, the station building was towered over by a clock tower on the north side, on which in later years the illuminated letters “B & O” were placed on all four sides.

history

Until the 1870s, the B&O and the PRR operated the main line from Jersey City via Philadelphia to Washington, DC together. This was done by means of lease agreements with smaller joint-stock companies, which ultimately owned these routes. Between Philadelphia and Baltimore, for example, this was the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B) .

As a result of business disputes, the PRR finally acquired the majority of the shares in PW&B and let the contract with B&O expire until 1884. This then relocated its train journeys to parallel railway lines. There was still a gap in the Philadelphia metropolitan area between the Reading Company tracks in the north and the Grays Ferry district in the south. This was closed by the new route described including the station east of the Schuylkill. The first train finally left on September 19, 1886.

After the Second World War , long-distance passenger transport in the USA increasingly fell behind in the face of increasing competition from cars and airplanes. The B&O also had to struggle with its competitor PRR, which, in contrast to the B&O, was able to offer both electrified and much more direct and faster connections. Eventually, B&O passenger services between Baltimore and Jersey City were completely abandoned. The last train left on April 26, 1958.

The station building was later demolished; Today (2008) there is an inconspicuous high-rise office building in its place. Two through tracks are still there today and are used by the CSX for freight traffic. The train station has largely disappeared from public awareness.

Web links