The "History of the Lancaster Railroad: Part II" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Just got back from visiting with our friends Jerry and Just Sue in State College. Had a great weekend talking about our next trip we plan to take and looking at Jerry's Master's of Education research report on the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad which he wrote and submitted in August of 1974.  Interesting book which helped me with the two-part story that I posted on my blog.  Some of the information for my stories was supplied by Jerry or found in his report.  Several of the photos I  have included today were original photos he took in 1974.  Yesterday I gave a brief story about how and why the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad (P & C Railroad) came to be and the people who were involved in it's beginning.  Today I will give you the story and history of the Lancaster Station.  It all began like this ...... The P & C Railroad originated in Philadelphia and eventually made it's way to Columbia, PA on the Susquehanna River. 

Bridge over the Conestoga.  I would fish and swim
under this bridge while the trains passed overhead.

One of the stops that was planned was in Lancaster, but at first the stop was on the outskirts of the city.  Lancaster's residents became concerned so they protested and on July 2, 1832 passed a resolution to make the railroad go through the city.  After the railroad passed through Gap, PA it entered Lancaster County and made a sharp southern turn across the Conestoga River on a viaduct which was 804 feet long and 47 feet high.  Beautiful span that originally had four tracks, but now has only two.  I can remember spending many a summer's day fishing and swimming in the Conestoga under the viaduct and listening to the the trains pass overhead.  

Part of old tracks that remain
behind Lancaster McCaskey H.S.

After passing this point the track ran parallel to New Holland Avenue and entered the city close to what is now Lancaster McCaskey High School.  Continued in a south-westerly direction to the Lancaster Train Station at the corner of West Chestnut and North Queen Streets.  The station was across the street from the Hotel Brunswick and made it possible for famous people to stop briefly on their travels and address Lancastrians from either the train or the Brunswick.  Famous notables such as Abraham Lincoln, James Buchanan, Horace Greeley, General Winfrield Hancock and Theodore Roosevelt all made stops in Lancaster to greet the crowds gathered near the train station.  The corner in the city where the station was located was among the first city lots sold by James Hamilton in 1745.  James had obtained much of Lancaster city from William Penn.  

Original station at N. Queen and E. Chestnut Streets

The original houses were torn down when the railroad came to town.  The initial station was nothing more than a small building with a platform behind it where passengers could board.  Within a year hotels and warehouses had been built around the depot increasing property values about 300%.  Eventually a much larger station

1861 Pennsylvania Railroad Station in Lancaster, PA.

was built and dedicated in 1861.  The tracks passed through the station, across Queen Street, curved north and followed Harrisburg Ave. to the Dillerville Railroad Yards.  From Dillerville it proceeded west and eventually arrived at Columbia where it traveled down the incline plane at Plane St.  

After passing through the city, the trains would
head to Dillerville Yards. 

The railroad cars each contained 1/2 of a canal boat which were taken off the train and the two halves were combined to make a canal boat for transporting across the river to the Pennsylvania Canal so the canal boats could head north to Holidaysburg.  The P & C Railroad was completed on October 7, 1834 and celebrated by sending two trains carrying Governor George Wolf and other state officials, drawn by steam locomotives named Lancaster and Columbia, from Columbia to Philadelphia.  The trains left Columbia at 8:00 AM and arrived in Philadelphia at 6:00 PM.  Just to be safe, another train pulled by horses, followed in case something would happen to the steam engine.

People lining up to get on the train downtown in
February of 1929 for one of the last trips.

The railroad opened as a public railroad meaning that the first several years of operation, private owners of horse-drawn rail cars shared the tracks with the locomotives until finally in 1844 the horse-drawn cars were deemed unsafe and banned from the tracks.  Most of the locomotives were built in Philadelphia by Matthias Baldwin, Richard Norris and Garrett & Eastwick.  Baldwin had a manufacturing plant in Lancaster as well.  Eventually a new station was constructed in the north end of the city at the end of Queen Street.  This became necessary because the old downtown station had its problems with train noise, dirt irritating city residents, tight confines, and traffic congestion. The slow curve that the trains had to follow into the Lancaster Station was eliminated.  The Lancaster Chamber of Commerce celebrated the new station with a special train from the old station to the new station on Monday, February, 1929.  Nearly 1,000 people had the chance to ride on this train to the new station.  The last train to leave the downtown station was at midnight on April 28, 1929.  

The Pennsylvania Railroad Station at the end of
Queen Street, one block from my childhood home.

The downtown station was then demolished in 1929 and covered with two feet of macadam for parking.  For nearly 80 years the only visible reminder of that station at the corner of East Chestnut and North Queen Streets was a line of yellow-painted stone pillars along the first block of East Chestnut that lined the parking lot.  The stones were once the base of the iron columns that supported the station's train shed.  

One of the platforms at the 1929 station.

Recently archeologists uncovered parts of Lancaster's railroad past that had been buried just below the macadam parking lot where the station stood.  Workers preparing the parking lot for a parking garage and condominiums uncovered tunnels lined with ornate white brick that passengers would have walked through beneath the tracks to reach the platforms.  These tunnels would have been built in 1860.  Excavators also found a stone-lined shaft that was probably from another era.  The shaft was probably a well or privy for a house that faced North Queen Street before the station was built.  A deed showed that a log house was on the site in 1747.  The station that Jerry and I grew up near on the north end of the city was the one that was built in 1929.  
Still a neat old place with many memories.  I often take my grandson to visit so I can share those memories with him.  Looking at his face when I tell him my tales and seeing his reaction makes me feel like I am living my past all over again.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.  

This is one of the most famous locomotives on the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad known as the "George Washington" and built by Norris and Long.

The next three images are post cards from the early 1900s that show the downtown railroad station.

Photo of a steam locomotive coming through downtown Lancaster on North Water Street.  This train carried Santa Claus to Watt & Shand Department Store at Christmas time.

Original Pennyslvania Railroad Station in Columbia, PA