Reading and PRR Railroad History with  

PRR history is so important to our history and is even more fascinating to learn about. Glad to see you shedding more light on this historic line.

The trackage on the left in your scenes of the Swinging Bridge tower is the former Schuylkill & Lehigh branch of the Reading, not the Wilmington & Northern. There was a bridge across the Schuylkill just beyond your video site which led the S&L to the old Cumru Junction. At that point the S&L crossed the Schuylkill again and connected with the northern end of the Wilmington & Northern. This was long before the Reading Belt Line was built. The plan was to bring Lehigh Valley coal traffic from Slatington to Wilmington tidewater in direct competition with the Reading. The plan fell through when the S&L went bankrupt and the P&R/Reading bought it up in a blocking move. A number of years later the P&R also scooped up the W&N. When the W&N was still an independent carrier, they did have a station at Front & Franklin sts (not the nearby PRR station) which they accessed via trackage rights over the S&L from Cumru Jct. In that area of Reading there were three different (on paper) railroads running side by side. Starting from the river side, they were the PRR Court St. Branch, the West Reading RR, and the S&L. This parallel operation went from Court St. to Bingaman St. and all 3 tracks were extant until the Agnes flooding forced a rationalization.

One of the best videos yet. Very interesting and informative. I love RR history and PA is my home state. I also have to say how sick it makes me to see graffiti on art and historical items.

Awesome tour! Really enjoyed the history!

Another great video RJ! Thanks for sharing this video! I always wondered where the Reading Outer station was originally located. Really enjoyed seeing the locomotive shops as well! Can’t wait for part 2!

Thank you for the nature walk and history lesson. Truly appreciate your time.

Awesome location and interesting Railroad history RJ! I'm sure glad they saved part of that swinging bridge, its awesome! Great adventure there, the old photos are awesome!Thanks for sharing!

Lot of fun that day. Glad I could take you there and show you around.

What looks like a switch under the bridge may have been a derail. I was at the Reading Shops area for a RCT&HS event about 40 years ago. That place has really changed.

We lost our plaques here at the school and the church probably 2012 they were bronze. So we decided to just carve a rock nobody is interested in stealing a rock LOL. You got to love humanity...

That was cool.

Nice can't wait for part2. Love Pa RR history and seeing what remains today!

Beautiful area, nice day to film. Another great presentation.👍Do you know what the status of the very long massive bldg is ? Never saw a bldg that long. I really dig rail history. Too bad so much of rail history in Wilkes Barre was destroyed. Used to be a huge rail yard near the downtown.

there were still steam trains in the 70s ??? what happened to the chessie line ?

It is so amazing that you rattle of names without any research what so ever. Johann August Robling was the engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge and other structures. But dam your just babel talked the whole video.

I have a 1947 Pennsylvania railroad spike 2102 is running today

People are so disrespectful…I never got the graffiti thing or why people do that😞

Reading is broķer than Lehigh Valley