Last trolley car to Columbia at Penn Square, Lancaster. Car No. 67. Taken February 14, 1938 at 11:15 pm. Geroge Irwin, motorman, at left, and conductor at right, before last departure from Lancaster.
This photo dating back to the 1890's was made fromt eh Duke Street over pass looking west showing the Lancaster station with its arched train shed that spanned the two passenger tracks from Queen to Christian Street. Photo, Jack W. W. Loose, Lancaster, Pa.
Provenance
From box labeled Pennsylvania RR Main Line, Columbia Br., A & S Br.
Old P. R. R. Queen St. Station looking west from Duke Street bridge - April 24, 1929, 3 days before station was closed on April 27, 1929 and trains commenced using station north of Liberty Street.
The Old Lancaster Station - Until it was preplaced in 1929 with a a new station on the northern part of the city, the Pennsy's passenger depot dominated lancaster's down town intersection of North Queen and Chestnut Street. The building itself took on a macabre roll in 1865 when it became an improptu morgue for the victims of the wreck of the "Day Express," at Kauffman's Mill east of Landisville in October of that year. Richard Reinhold, photo.
Provenance
From box labeled Pennsylvania RR Main Line, Columbia Br., A & S Br.
Landmark Being Removed - Much of the atmosphere of down town Lancaster on a shirt sleeve summer day as workmen, in this scene began demolishing, after its closure on 1929, the old Pennsylvania station at North Queen and Chestnut Street. A Conestoga Traction trolley heads up North Queen Street and Harry Todd was still running the Railroad Cafe, but the trains would pass its doors no more. Richard Reinhold, photo.
Provenance
From box labeled Pennsylvania RR Main Line, Columbia Br., A & S Br.
Looking east from the Lancaster station in 1932 showing a westbound Pennsy express slowing for the station stop. The over pass carrying Lititz Pike is in the background. Photo, John Bowman, Jr., Lancaster, Pa.
Provenance
From box labeled Pennsylvania RR Main Line, Columbia Br., A & S Br.
Decades before there was a Route 30 By-Pass and a Park City Shopping Center, the Chicago bound "Broadway Limited," headed by P. R. R. 4-6-2 type No. 5436, is shown in this 1936 view passing Long Park west of Lancaster. Photo, John Bowman, Jr., Lancaster, Pa.
Provenance
From box labeled Pennsylvania RR Main Line, Columbia Br., A & S Br.
At a little after two on a warm July Afternoon in 1957, the author's camera recorded the Pennsylvania's train thrity two, the east bound "St Louisan," pulled by one of the famous GG-1 electrics, while stopped at the Lancaster station. The well known train offered bedroom and roomette sleeping cars as well as lounge car and dining service between St. Louis and New York.
Provenance
From box labeled Pennsylvania RR Main Line, Columbia Br., A & S Br.
The photographer stood against the old wall along East Chestnut Street and caught this nostalgic 1926 view of a Pennsy train standing under the train shed of the old Lancaster station on North Queen Street. Two dining car cooks have the diner door open to catch a breath of fresh air away from the steaming hot confines of their kitchen.
The Philadelphia & Reading's Lancaster freight office personnel posed for the photographer about 1920. The gentleman in the white shirt and bow tie (fourth from right) is Benjamin Rohrer, the Reading's longt time agent at Lancaster. Although Lancaster was a major on line agency, the "central heating," even in that era was still a pot-bellied stove fueled with anthracite coal... the carriers' major freight commodity.
Built at the Reading shops in 1907, this American type 4-4-0 camelback No. 245 was typical of the Reading's branch line motive power. The occasion of the formal portrait on the Reading's turntable in Lancaster in 1921 has long been forgotton. The No. 245 at that particular time was assigned to the Columbia passenger run.
This 1910 view card shows the Reading's 2-track, stub end passenger station on Lancaster's North Prince Street. The frame freight station to the immediate right was later replaced by a modern brick structure. The curving trolley tracks in the foreground lead into the Conestoga Traction's Prince Street carbarn.
Although short lived the Reading inaugurated an 1826 express run that carried a thru Pullman parlor car from Lancaster to New York. The gentleman in the derby standing among th edignitaries before the first departure from Lancaster is Agnew T. Dice, Jr., then superintendent of the Reading's Wilmington & Columbia Division and son of the Reading's chief executive. Nepotism perhaps but the Reading & Columbia Branch seemed to come to full flower during the reign of President Dice.
This two-story structure that stood on the west side of North Queen Street opposite the Pennsylvania's old Lancaster station, at one time, housed the station for the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad when it laid its rails thru Lancaster in 1834. The photo was made shortly before the building was demolished in the 1930's.
This two car York local was waiting on the north side of the westbound platform of the Lancaster station in 1933 was typical of the Pennsylvania's many branch line passenger runs in the steam era. After the arrival of its New York connection, number 4122 will pull out on its twenty-five mile run to York. Photo, John Bowman, Jr., Lancaster, Pa.
Flying white flags designating it as an "extra," Reading gas-electric No. 66 is shown in the Lancaster yards during a traial run over the R. & C., in 1930. Gas electric trains gradually replaced the Reading's steam runs in Lancaster County
With its cab built astride the boiler, the Reading's 2-8-0 camelback No. 1524 was typical of its class. Assigned to various freight runs over the R. & C., branch, it was phtographed in April of 1940 while laying over at Lancaster.
The Reading's locomotive servicing facility in Lancaster was north of Harrisburg Avenue, west of Prince Street. This 1936 view shows three Reading comelbacks lined up during an idle moment in yard activity.
