Reading Trains and Trolleys

By Philip K. Smith, Historical Society of Berks County, Society Of Berks County Historical

Book Overview

Reading Trains and Trolleys documents the impact of railroad and trolley networks on Reading and adjoining communities.

Rail transportation has been part of daily life in Reading since the 1830s. Reading Trains and Trolleys portrays the good old days of the Philadelphia & Reading Railway (reorganized as the Reading Company in 1923), the Schuylkill Valley Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Mount Penn Gravity Railroad, the Neversink Mountain Railroad, the Reading City Passenger Railway, and the Reading Traction Company. The Reading Railroad gained widespread recognition as a property for sale on the Monopoly board, but the history of trains and trolleys in Reading goes well beyond that iconography. Reading Trains and Trolleys documents the impact of railroad and trolley networks on Reading and adjoining communities, including photographs of the interior of the locomotive shop and the carbarn at Tenth and Exeter Streets, views of the Walnut Street yard before and after the Outer Station was constructed, and views from the Swinging Bridge, which spanned the yard by the Outer Station. The Historical Society of Berks County's collection of rail photographs includes many never-before-published images of diverse scenes in and around Reading.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0738535141
• ISBN13: 9780738535142
• Release Date: March 2004
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing (SC)
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Take a ride on the Reading...

... back in time to vintage Reading and Berks County in this wonderful and concise history-through-pictures. See how people got from point A to point B "back in the day." Though the pictures are black and white, they convey the true history of this region, a history that was forged with steel and coal.