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

It was an ordinary day.  My childhood friend and longtime traveling buddy Jerry just arrived with his wife Just Sue for the weekend.  With him was a rolled poster of the Pennsylvania Railroad Station at North Queen and East Chestnut Street in downtown Lancaster, PA. that his brother-in-law had just given to him.  

Poster of the original train station in Lancaster, PA

 For years, while growing up in Lancaster, Jerry and I lived near the train station that replaced the one in the poster in 1929.  I spent many hours sliding down the brass railings, watching the trains arrive and depart and even managed to sneak under the platforms to watch the rotation of the wheels as they rolled by.  But, I never got to see the Pennsylvania Railroad Station when it ran through the center of the city.  Story of that station begins like this ......... At one time the canals on the east side and the middle of the state of Pennsylvania were the basic means of moving goods.  A proposed canal across the state from the Susquehanna River to Philadelphia was deemed impossible.  In January of 1821 Colonel John Stevens wrote a letter to Mayor Robert Wharton of Philadelphia telling of the need for a railroad from Philadelphia to Columbia, PA.  At the time the Pennsylvania Canal ran from Columbia, which is on the Susquehanna River, to Holidaysburg by way of the Juanita River.  Finally, two years later, on March 31st, the Pennsylvania legislature granted a charter to the Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad (P & C).  In preparation for the upcoming railroad, Stevens worked two years building a steam locomotive which would eventually be used on the P & C Railroad.  In 1827 Major John Wilson made a preliminary survey of a route for the P & C Railroad.  He was employed by the PA Canal commissioners to locate the route with the help of Lancastrian Joshua Scott.  Finally in 1829 railroad construction began which would run parallel to the Philadelphia to Lancaster Turnpike.  The railroad started at Broad and Vine in Philadelphia, ran to the Schuylkill River, crossed the river on the Columbia Bridge to the Belmont Incline Plane where canal cars were transported up the incline and loaded onto railroad cars for the eventual trip to Columbia, PA.  Towns that the train passed through were Narbeth, Wynnewood, Ardmore, White Hall (Bryn Mawr), Paoli, Downingtown, Coatesville, Gap, Paradise, to the east of Lancaster before curving south and crossing the bridge over the Conestoga River at the Lancaster Water Works and running through the city of Lancaster.  From Lancaster the railroad passed through several small towns on the west side of Lancaster before it reached the inclined plane in Columbia.  The route took the railroad down the plane to the river where the canal cars were taken off the train cars, transported across the river and loaded onto canal boat for the trip along the Juanita River. All of the construction did not take place overnight, but over the time span of a few years. In 1832 the first 20 miles were opened

Passenger coach drawn by horses between
Belmont Plane and Paoli in 1832

 from Philadelphia. It was the same year that the City Council in Lancaster passed a resolution that the railroad was to pass through the center of the city.  That was the reason for the sharp southern curve after leaving Paradise.  The tracks of the railroad were originally made of wood with a path in the center for horses which were used to pull the railroad cars.  Horses were used from time to time until they eventually were banned in 1844.  An interesting feature of the new railroad was that it was a public railroad when it was first finished.  Anyone could place a car on the tracks, hook their horse to the car, and transport their goods along the railroad.  I guess you can see what could happen today it that practice had continued.  Well, I am going to end this part of my story and continue tomorrow with the story of the train station in the city of Lancaster.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

Old photo that shows the Belmont Plane near Philadelphia.