The City Archives have some great photos of the bridge replacement over Tabor Rd. in 1950. It also shows some of the local industries, such as ABC Coal and Kelly& Meehan Lumber, who were customers of the Reading. I think the RDG also had a few team tracks on Tabor just north of the bridge. Go to
http://www.phillyhistory.org and search the photo page for Tabor Rd.
There are also a few pix of the Summerdale Ave. grade crossing from the Streets Dept. There was a building here on the NW quadrant that had a siding, but the company name escapes me at the moment.
I believe the largest shipper besides Sears was the Exide Battery Plant at Rising Sun and Adams. This plant specialized in batteries for submarines. There are still some tracks in the pavement behind the few buildings which still exist. This used to be a Forman Mills, but I think it moved across the street into the old Hechinger's bldg.
The Bond bakery on Godfrey, near the start of the branch, was still a customer in the mid 70's, as I remember getting a cab ride from the Heintz plant at Front and Olney up to the Bakery. The bakery bldg still exists and I think it's still a Boscovs store.
Stokes Vacuum is just south of the Tabor Ave. bridge, which was removed in the late 90's- early 00's, but I don't know if they were a customer or not......Here's a sample pic- Stokes is on the near left and Exide is the far left set of bldgs.
40698-14 Frnk Br over Tabor Rd..jpg (52.75 KiB) Viewed 17118 times