Old and closed down Regional Rail stations

I used to go to school at the tech-school in Aston, and my bus driver would pass the Lenni station on the way home. It's just a one-track station with the guard rail and for some strange reason it had the gray SEPTA sign that would say "Lenni Station". It was kind of weird that it was a one-track station. There was no bench or anything where people would sit down and it was all rocks there. It's just the thin street of Lenni Road I believe it is, the "Lenni Station" sign, the guard rail, the track, and the field of rocks. That's it. Curious about it, I recently looked it up on Google Maps and found this long route of a one-track route between Elwyn and West Chester. After doing that investagation I did do an investation a did some searching around the web and found a series of other Reginal Rail stations that were shut down... like these;

R2:
Bethlehem-Allentown
Naamans Road
Baldwin

R3:
Moylan-Rose Valley - still open
Media - still open
Elwyn - still open
Lenni
Darlington - one of the many stations that I didn't spot on Google Maps but came up on Wikipedia
WaWa - one of the many stations that I didn't spot on Google Maps but came up on Wikipedia and I like that there was a station called "WaWa" as one time my bus driver made a stop at that WaWa in Aston but I never spotted a train station there.
Glen Mills - No SEPTA sign. There's just a house there.
Locksley - one of the many stations that I didn't spot on Google Maps but came up on Wikipedia
Cheyney - one of the many stations that I didn't spot on Google Maps but came up on Wikipedia and is this near Cheyney University?
Westtown - one of the many stations that I didn't spot on Google Maps but came up on Wikipedia
Oakbourne - one of the many stations that I didn't spot on Google Maps but came up on Wikipedia
West Chester University - one of the many stations that I didn't spot on Google Maps but came up on Wikipedia
West Chester period (the real end of the line)- On Market and Barnard Streets, I pinned on Goggle Maps that there's the yellow dead-end thing for the railroad tracks. I do see a bit of a sign but not a gray SEPTA sign that say "West Chester Station".

R6:
Shawmont- This now-non-existing station can now be found after Miquon... not too far from Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. Was there any reason why Shawmont was closed down?

R7:
Lamokin
Wissinoming

Other stations:
52nd Street - Being that there was a mention of Cynwyd and Ivy Ridge, this must have been a station at the R6.
Westmoreland - I think this was an R2 station but I'm not sure.
Fellwick
Fishers
Fulmor
- I have no clue where these F-word stations are. I learned these were closed RR stations on March 21, 1997

Not that I live in Glen Mills anyway but it kind of sucks that SEPTA doesn't really serve that area ANYWAY but to make matters worse the stations at Glen Mills are shut down. Why? If I had control, I would open those stations back up again and possibly put out a new vehicle. If any of you know any other closed-down stations on the Reginal Rail system or any were-existing SEPTA stations or vehicles ANYWHERE please do bring 'em up. I am interested. Speaking of vehicles, I also at one point read on Wikipedia that there used to be a certain vehicle owned by SEPTA and it provided one station it would stop at and its address. I fingered it on Google Maps but it just showed a street where between it were a field with railroad tracks and the street concrete was OVER the tracks. The tracks were burried bascically lol.

There's a few errors there, but yes, there are a lot of stations that are no longer in use (the ones you listed and many more): mainly because they had very few riders (10-20 a day or fewer) or because they were outside the electrified zone when SEPTA/Conrail discontinued their diesel route. If you search, you might be able to find a file from the SEPTA RRD rider census that catalogs all the stations, their line and milepost, if and when they closed, and how many riders they've had.

Coupla corrections (not an exhaustive list):
Lamokin is on the Wilmington line, in Chester City.
Westmoreland is on the Chestnut Hill West.

The ones I am familiar with are:

Trenton Line-- Andalusia, Wissinoming, Frankford Jct.

West Trenton Line-- Fairless Jct

There are many reasons for the closures on the South end of the RRD on the Media/Elwyn line, severely declined ridership and deteriorated track conditions being the principle reasons. At it's end, the RRD South of Elwyn only had 50 riders per day. This number is not a reason to continue service, especially when they had a thriving Exton station only a few miles away serving hundreds per day. Seeing service back to West Chester looks great on paper, but it could never be a reality any time in the near future. Watching the struggle to simply expand service \to Wawa is just a small fraction of the undertaking it would be to get service all the way to West Chester. SEPTA has run out of money on this project, stalling it completely with an unsure future.

If you take a ride on the WCRR, you can see the railroad from a different angle. As of right now, we are the closest thing to providing any kind of rail service to the WC borough. If we were not operating this line, it would just be another Newtown Branch.

Blackstreet wrote: Cheyney - one of the many stations that I didn't spot on Google Maps but came up on Wikipedia and is this near Cheyney University?

Yup, this station was near Cheyney University. I don't know the name of the road it's on, but on Google, if you look at the intersection of Cheyney and Tanguy Roads, go one street south (towards Baltimore Pike) on the map. This small street leads to the station, located in a residential neighborhood. This station is now a post office.

I had a picture of it, but never uploaded it! Here's a picture of Locksley Station, though, which is still standing

Oh, Westtown Station is off of Street Road (Chester County) where the tracks pass under the roadway. It's now a private residence/art shop now that are run by nice people. I think there's a restaurant across the street as well. I thought I had a picture or two of this station, but I guess I never uploaded them...shame on me!

West Chester University Station is right outside of the West Chester Yard...I think. It's also one of those tiny "stops" and I think it was only on one side as well. Gosh, it's been a while since I've been along that line. It's too bad SEPTA is having so much trouble expanding it to even just Wawa, but that train really went through some difficult terrain. Hopefully I can ride with the WCRR one day to enjoy the line...it really was a long walk, even just from Cheyney to West Chester!

Closures by line, non-official, of course:

R1 Glenside-Airport/SEPTA Main:
Tabor
Logan
Nicetown
Tioga
Spring Garden (closed after the Reading Viaduct was taken out of use for the CCC)

R2 Warminster-Newark, De:
Fulmor
Baldwin
Lamokin St
Trainer
Naamans Rd
Edgemoor

R3 West Trenton-West Chester:
Parkview
Fairless Junction
Entire Line West of Elwyn (many of the buildings still stand and are being used for other uses. Wikipedia has some good articles about a few of them)

R5 Doylestown-Throndale:
Fellwick
Frazer
Parkesburg (west of Thorndale. Not closed, but SEPTA ended service there in the mid-90s. Amtrak still stops)

R6: Norristown-Cynwyd:
Mogees
Ivy Rock
Shawmont
Barmouth (North of Cynwyd, at Laurel Hill Cemetary)
Manayunk West (DuPont and High Sts in Manayunk, not far from the current Manayunk station)
Ivy Ridge (Upper) (building still stands and teh parking lot is still in use)

R7 Chestnut Hill E-Trenton:
Fishers
Frankford
Frankford Junction
Wisinoming
Andalusia
Morrisville (not sure if this one survived into the Conrail days)

R8 Fox Chase-Chestnut Hill W:
Entire line north of Fox Chase (a few good Wikipedia articles on this)
Cresentville
Westmoreland

Bethlehem Line: entire line north of Lansdale
Reading Line: entire line west of Norristown

Did I miss anything?

Wow, where was the Morrisville Station?

Tritransit Area wrote:Wow, where was the Morrisville Station?

I'm not too sure- I've only seen it listed on old PRR Trenton Line schedules. I would assume it was near the intersection of PA and Phila Aves. There's a small access road there, according to Google Maps. I'll find the schedule online and post the link to it.

EDIT: I found the schdule. Interestingly, it appears that these trains terminated at Levittown-Tullytown. Morrisville, Trenton, and NYP are still listed with arrival times, though. On page 2, Morrisville station is located at MP 31.9. Only one train per day (Nr. 520) stopped there in 1975, heading towards Trenton. Don't know when the station was closed, though.

http://www.mediafire.com/?6j9lkalogxg

That's the link for the schedule. There are a few adds that pop-up, sorry about that.

Tioga and Nicetown were as close to each other as 11th and 15th on the MFSE.

tgolanos wrote: R3 West Trenton-West Chester:
Parkview
Fairless Junction
Entire Line West of Elwyn (many of the buildings still stand and are being used for other uses. Wikipedia has some good articles about a few of them)

where was fairless jct?

jtaeffner wrote:

tgolanos wrote: R3 West Trenton-West Chester:
Parkview
Fairless Junction
Entire Line West of Elwyn (many of the buildings still stand and are being used for other uses. Wikipedia has some good articles about a few of them)

where was fairless jct?

Somewhere in between Langhorne and Woodbourne, I'm pretty sure. I'm too young to have ever seen it physically exist, so maybe someone around during the Reading days can pin-point it.

tgolanos wrote:Closures by line, non-official, of course:

R1 Glenside-Airport/SEPTA Main:
Tabor
Logan
Nicetown
Tioga
Spring Garden (closed after the Reading Viaduct was taken out of use for the CCC)



Did I miss anything?

How about the old Fern Rock Station, just a little bit North of the Fern Rock Transportation Center?

Tsk, tsk; how could we forget the Newtown extension of the Fox Chase line? There were (Rockledge where the trail now ends), (Harpers), Walnut Hill, (Valley Falls just beyond the bridge at the north end of the trail), Huntingdon Valley, Bryn Athyn, (Paper Mills), (Woodside at the Creek Road crossing), (Woodmont at north side of the Byberry Road crossing), County Line, Southampton, Churchville, Holland, (St. Leonards south of the Buck Road bridge), the abortive stop at Village Shires, George School, and Newtown. The stations in parenthesis were discontinued before SEPTA, some quite long before.

Fairless Junction was located at the east side where Old Lincoln Highway intersected the West Trenton line. The building later served at Newtown.

Parkland station (Parkview is on the P&W) stood on the hillside right of way overlooking route 1 between Neshaminy Falls and Langhorne.

tgolanos wrote:Closures by line, non-official, of course:

R1 Glenside-Airport/SEPTA Main:
Tabor
Logan
Nicetown
Tioga

Someone else mentioned the old Fern Rock. That one and the four above were still active when I first became familiar with SEPTA Regional Rail just over 25 years ago (in late 1985).

But specifically, Logan was mainly used by R2 trains. Nicetown and Tioga were mainly or even exclusively used by R8 trains. I believe that Tabor and the old Fern Rock were also mainly used by R2 trains. Further up, in Montgomery County, Melrose Park was mainly used by R5 trains, and Elkins Park was mainly used by the West Trenton trains, which were called R1 back then even though they were paired with R3 Elwyn on the other side of the city.

R5 Doylestown-Throndale:
Parkesburg (west of Thorndale. Not closed, but SEPTA ended service there in the mid-90s. Amtrak still stops)

Didn't the SEPTA Parkesburg trains also serve Coatesville? Here's what I remember about the "Main Line" over the past 25 years:

Originally, most trains went as far as Paoli, but some weekday and possibly Saturday trains went as far as Malvern. Then, the service was extended further west, with three new stops. Thorndale was the closest to Philadelphia. I believe Coatesville came next and then Parkesburg, but those two may have been reversed. This was probably not 7-day-a-week service. Eventually, service was scaled back to Thorndale. Today, there is service to Thorndale on weekdays and Saturdays. Service does run to Malvern on Sundays these days, though.

R7 Chestnut Hill E-Trenton:
Morrisville (not sure if this one survived into the Conrail days)

Wow, there really was a Morrisville station! This is the place that I'm always saying looks like it should have a station but doesn't.