Everyone:
After a somewhat extensive search I was able to find pictures of the previous Solari board that
was used at 30th Street Station before the major renovation project (1988-1991) upgrading the
interior and exterior of the Station. What I unfortunately could not find was information about
previous work performed over the five year period 1983-1987 in which other changes were made.
There was an extensive renovation work project done at 30th Street during the years 1988-1991.
Other work was performed during the previously described five year period from 1983 to 1987.
This included cleaning of the walls and ceilings, lowering to the ground each chandelier to install
brighter bulbs and clean the glass; and opening the entire south area (the current Food Court) to
to the public - which was previously closed except the southwest entrance which had barricades
of wood on its east side. There were concessions on the main floor - the largest being a PSFS
Bank branch in the SW corner - which all changed with the interior renovation.
Under the SEPTA RRD track area was once a bowling alley - which was closed at some point in the
early to middle 1980s and was the location of the infamous fire that destroyed it in December 1991.
Thanks to the Amtrak History Archives I was able to find two 1979 30th Street Station interior
photographs - one showing the previous Solari board looking southeast along with the quad face
digital clock above and the three box light-up Train Information sign over the Desk counter.
There is an August 1976 dated interior photo again showing the previous Solari board that is
listed along with the Wikipedia station information.
https://history.amtrak.com/archives/inf ... ation-1979" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://history.amtrak.com/archives/mai ... ation-1979" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://history.amtrak.com/blogs/blog/a ... et-station" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30th_Street_Station" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I recall that the NRHS National Library had a considerable collection of Amtrak materials which
included ephemera and publications (Amtrak News-an employee magazine/newsletter from the
70s and 80s was a good example) that could have helped find out more about when 30th Street
Station improvements were completed. If it were still available (closed March 2008) I could have
pulled out these contents to search further for more information along with Penn Central and PRR
archived items from the collection for before the Amtrak years.
The question that I have about the Solari board(s) is: Was the old board turned from north-south
to east-west along with an updating of board components such as the bottom message lines or is
the current board an outright replacement of the older board?
MACTRAXX
