24-10-26 PHOTOS: Coatesville

The former Pennsylvania Railroad Station in Coatesville, PA occupies a strange in-between space. It's beyond the reach of SEPTA Regional Rail, which terminates about 4 miles to the east at Thorndale, but still handles a lot of Philadelphia commuter traffic. Once a significant steel town, Coatesville has slowly evolved into a bedroom community for people priced out of closer in suburbs. Ironically the station once boasted a limited SEPTA scheduled in a similar manner to MARC's Perryville service, but the cost of maintaining a 2-shift operator job at PARK tower in Parkesburg to turn the trains forced SEPTA to cut service back to Downingtown leaving passengers to rely on Amtrak's Keystone trains to get to Philly and beyond. Left to deteriorate for decades, Coatesville is finally getting its replacement station and, hopefully, restored SEPTA service. In this set of photos ( mirror ) I'll explore the old Coatesville station, pop by the old tower at LANDIS and then finish out the day at HARRIS tower in Harrisburg.

It might not look like it, but the Coatesville station building actually dates from 1868. Likely used up into the Amtrak SEPTA era, the building was ultimately closed and boarded up, suffering a fire in 2014 which gutted most of the second story. In 2020 the building was cosmetically restored to play the role of the Easttown police station in the award winning HBO drama, Mare of Easttown. This is why it bares the street address of 1223 Fake St, instead of its actual number of 259 Fleetwood St. The outline from the Railroad Express Agency diamond can still be seen on the front of the building.

In 1911 the Coatesville Station infrastructure was upgraded at the tail end of the PRR's eastern PA freight upgrades which included the Atglen and Susquehanna plus Philadelphia and Thorndale low grade lines and general 4-tracking of the Main Line between the two. Making use of the new wonder material, reinforced concrete, the new station featured two side platforms, an underpass using the bridge over third street and stairways up to both grade separated platforms.

For years the track-level infrastructure consisted of two truncated low level platforms, a short wooden shelter with bench, a bay window with station information and what appears to be an ADA ramp into the upper level of the station which may have contained an elevator.

Today the only service was on track #4 due to a reconstruction of eastbound track #1 and restoration of track #2 for freight service. This work was made possible due to the recent re-signaling project to make the tracks between THORN and PARK interlockings bi-directional.

Meanwhile track #4 still features its 152lb Pennsylvania Special rail dating from 1934.

Another reason for all the construction fencing was the new Coatesville station taking shape a block east of the current one. The new station will feature high level platforms and modern parking/drop off/bus facilities.

Yes, I did make sure to catch an train at the station with Amtrak ACS-86 #662 at the head of Keystone Service train #662. Metroliner Cab Car #9636 was hanging out on the rear.

A prominent feature of the Coatesville skyline since 1904, the granite arch High Bridge or Coatesville viaduct upgraded a previous 2-track iron bridge and immediately preceded the concrete revolution.

Heading for Harrisburg, I made a quick stop by the old LANDIS tower at the crossing of the Reading Railroad's Columbia Branch. The "tower" was actually a table interlocking machine installed inside the old freight station when the PRR pattern wooden tower was deemed unnecessary.

I managed to get to HARRIS tower just as eastbound Pennsylvanian Train 42 was pulling by with Phase VII painted P42DC #87.

NS freight was pretty steady for the few hours I was there. First to appear was a westbound with ET44 #3604 and AC66C6M #4345.

Next up was the show stopper, Savanah and Atlanta heritage unit #1065 trailing AC44C6M #4506 on a westbound intermodal run.

As I was leaving I managed to catch another westbound intermodal with C44-10W #7615 and "straight" unit AC44C6M #4567. A couple of content creator types had their tripod set up at the east end of the parking lot.

I'll finish up with some MARC action. First up cab car #8055 at Dorsey on the Camden Line.

Here MARC SC44 #87, at the head of a late night northbound Penn Line train, takes a Limited Clear signal on track 1 at WINANS interlocking for the 45mph turnout onto the A track to make the Halethorpe station stop. Before the station got high level platforms, many MARC trains would stay on Track #1 and platform across track A on duckboards.



Finally we have southbound Amtrak Regional Train #147 with ACS-86 #656 meeting northbound Regional Train #168 with ACS-86 #649 late on a Saturday afternoon at the Halethorpe MARC Station. Both trains were traveling around 100mph.



That's all for this journey. Check back next time as I make another visit to Anthracite coal country.