Philly: Pencoyd Viaduct? / Schuylkill River Commuter Rail
Tom Williams
vicinity of Manayunk and West Manayunk) still in use? Who
was the original railroad that built it, Pennsylvania or
Philadelphia and Reading?
---------
In other news, Philadelphia (at the request of Mayor Street)
has voted AGAINST the Schuylkill River Commuter Rail
project, which would restore regional rail service all the
way to the VF Factory Outlet in Reading, PA. The reason
given was that Philadelphia wants the project to include a
light rail spur from Center City Philadelphia to 52nd
Street. Septa does want to do this, but can't do everything
at once. They have already purchased a rail bed from
Conrail to eventually accomplish this.
Septa cancelled the commuter rail service on the former
Reading Railroad Schuylkill line in the early 1980's. The
parallel Pennsylvania Railroad (Penn Central) line ran on
the opposite side of the river. The line was abandoned by
Conrail in the early 1980's.
Scott M. Kozel
>
> Is this railroad bridge over the Schuylkill River (in the
> vicinity of Manayunk and West Manayunk) still in use? Who
> was the original railroad that built it, Pennsylvania or
> Philadelphia and Reading?
I believe it was PRR.
I've got a 1987 photo of it in my article below --
"I-76 Schuylkill Expressway" -
http://www.pennways.com/I76_PA_Schuylkill.html
The Schuylkill Expressway bridge that I am driving on is called the
Pencoyd Viaduct.
I wasn't aware that the railroad bridge had a name. It carried the
commuter rail Manayunk Line when I lived in the area in the 1970s.
--
Scott M. Kozel Highway and Transportation History Websites
Virginia/Maryland/Washington, D.C. http://www.roadstothefuture.com
Philadelphia and Delaware Valley http://www.pennways.com
Mike Szilagyi
that carries the Schuylkill Expressway over a ravine, just to the east
of the concrete aquaduct-style railroad bridge in question here. For
years the Pencoyd viaduct was was a very dangerous bridge, particularly
in wet weather. It was built without shoulders and had a skimpy steel
railing, most of it twisted from repeated encounters with traffic. The
macadam was of a particularly slick sort, which used to slide down the
hill in hot weather and accumulate at the bottom (the west side).
Recent rebuilding has improved it a lot.
Regarding the railroad bridge, it was built by the Pennsy and last saw
service as part of the R6 Cynwyd line (before that line was cut back
from its old terminus in Manayunk).
One of the possible alignments of the Schuylkill Valley Metro would
utilize this bridge.
Mike.
Tom Williams
Thanks for the info. My source for the name "Penncoyd viaduct" may have
confused the railroad bridge with the nearby highway bridge.
Incidentally, phillyroads.com/roads/schuylkill says the following:
"Westbound on the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76), just before the Pencoyd
Viaduct in Bala
Cynwyd. More than a century old, the arched viaduct carried SEPTA
commuter rail
(R6-Manayunk line) service until 1990. (Photo by Scott Kozel.)...
"In designing the Schuylkill Expressway, Michael Rapuano faced geographic
and aesthetic
challenges along the route, which parallels the Schuylkill River for most
of its 25-mile length.
Through Montgomery County, he had to weave an expressway through the
steep slopes along
the west bank of the river, around a historic railroad tunnel without
damaging it, and under the
narrow arches of the Pencoyd Viaduct."
Mike Szilagyi
entirely possible that the name "Pencoyd viaduct" (or perhaps Pencoyd
bridge) did belong originally to the Pennsy railroad bridge. After all
the railroad bridge was there long before the Schuylkill Expressway was
built. It's possible that the expressway viaduct "borrowed" the name
from the railroad bridge. I have no idea if this is true but it is
plausible.
Mike.
Les Gilpin
presumably the name is an Americanisation of the Welsh placename Pencoed
(pronounced in the same way).
And no - as far as I'm aware , there isnt a Pencoed viaduct in Wales
although there is a passenger station (depot).
Les Gilpin
Cardiff
Wales
GeneJYao
>Totally off topic but the subject - Pencoyd Viaduct >intrigues me - presumably
the name is an >Americanisation of the Welsh placename Pencoed
>(pronounced in the same way).
This is very likely given that many localities in the western Philadelphia
suburbs have Welsh names (e.g., Cynwyd, Bryn Mawr, Ardmore, Merion, Narberth,
etc.). This is because many of the first European settlers of that area were
from Wales.
Jafd26
>
>Totally off topic but the subject - Pencoyd Viaduct intrigues me -
>presumably the name is an Americanisation of the Welsh placename Pencoed
>(pronounced in the same way).
>
>And no - as far as I'm aware , there isnt a Pencoed viaduct in Wales
>although there is a passenger station (depot).
>
IIRC, a 19th-century tycoon built an estate in that vicinity, named it
'Pencoyd'. Probably some searching of the Inquirer archives or the local
history collections at the Free Library of Philadelphia or Temple Univ. would
yield more info on that. Sorry I don't have time for that research this month.
The bridge carrying the Schuylkill Expressway over a stream valley acquired
that name sometime soon after it was built. While there's another quite
spectacular multiple-arch bridge, carrying the old PRR Manayunk line over the
river, a couple of hundred yards away, that's not called the 'Pencoyd Viaduct'
except by the obviously clueless.
Hope tihs is of interest.
Yours, John Desmond - jafd26@a0l d0t c0m
John Wilson
Les Gilpin wrote:
>
> Totally off topic but the subject - Pencoyd Viaduct intrigues me -
> presumably the name is an Americanisation of the Welsh placename Pencoed
> (pronounced in the same way).
That's undoubtedly right. That area is full of placenames like Berwyn,
Bryn Mawr, Llanerch, Rydal, Roslyn, etc. Betcha the local
pronounciation of none of these is right. The next two stations toward
Philadelphia from the Pencoyd Viaduct are Cynwyd and Bala. And going up
the ex-Reading Bethlehem line, three commuter stations in succession are
Penllyn, Gwynedd Valley, and North Wales.
>
> And no - as far as I'm aware , there isnt a Pencoed viaduct in Wales
> although there is a passenger station (depot).
>
> Les Gilpin
> Cardiff
> Wales
A place I'd like to visit, if it wasn't such a long plane ride from
California.
73,
JohnW
C. D. Graham
Welsh; it's Irish.
Jonsenk
Jon
Philadelphia Transportation Page
http://members.aol.com/jonsenk
Roger T. Prichard
IIRC the railroad was instrumental in renaming Ardmore (was Athensville), Bryn Mawr (was Humphreysville) and Rosemont (was Whitehall), at the least. Were there others?
Roger Prichard
On the Camden and Amboy
Gerard M Foley
"Tom Williams" <tom.wi...@hans.nospam> wrote in message
news:3A2994AF...@hans.nospam...
> Is this railroad bridge over the Schuylkill River (in the
> vicinity of Manayunk and West Manayunk) still in use? Who
> was the original railroad that built it, Pennsylvania or
> Philadelphia and Reading?
> ---------
Haven't been around there for about twenty years, but if the bridge is the
one I'm thinking of, the Pennsylvania built it. The PRR Norristown branch
took off from the main line around 52nd St. (there was a station around
there), went to Bala, Cynwyd and crossed the river to continue to
Norristown.
The Reading Norristown branch left the Reading main at Broad Street, had a
station, East Falls, at Midvale Avenue. If my memory is right, it had
stations at Manayunk, Wissahickon (Roxborough) and went on to Norristown.
The existence of the Reading station on the Norristown Branch was the reason
for changing a station name on the Lansdale branch from Wissahickon to
Ambler, after a Quaker lady who nursed victims of a wreck on the railroad
near there. The change was necessitated by a merger of the railroads.
Exile on Market Street
<cgr...@lrsm.upenn.edu> wrote:
> A minor linguistic point: of the Main Line station names. Ardmore is NOT
> Welsh; it's Irish.
FWIW, I also understood that "Ardmore" and "Bryn Mawr" meant the same thing
in their respective languages.
--
Sandy Smith, University Relations / 215.898.1423 / smi...@pobox.upenn.edu
Managing Editor, _Pennsylvania Current_ cur...@pobox.upenn.edu
Penn Web Team -- Web Editor webm...@isc.upenn.edu
I speak for myself here, not Penn http://pobox.upenn.edu/~smiths/
"Believe me. You wouldn't want to go here if *your* mother was the
president."
--Penn President Judith Rodin on her son Alex, off to Duke
---------------------------------------------(_Philadelphia_, Nov. 2000)--
Mike Szilagyi
1984) at:
http://users.netreach.net/jprock/RDGterm.htm
I used to commute through that terminal regularly in 1979-81. I would
ride the RDC's to Phoenixville -- those things really moved, and the
windows in the vestibules opened ;^)
At that time the terminal was incredibly dirty inside. The escalators
up from Market Street, and the waiting room, were walled off from the
great space and painted a drab green color. That was the low point.
I was a bit shocked when I first entered the train shed after the
convention center was finished, to find that most of the shed was cut up
and divided into lots of meeting rooms, etc. I thought they'd preserve
the vast unbroken space inside, oh well. It's just lucky that they
saved it at all I guess.
Interesting about all the Welsh place names around here. History books
make much of the fact that a Swede built the first house around here
(down near the airport), and that Quakers and Pennsylvania Dutch settled
much of this area. The Welsh sure did name a lot of it though!
Mike
(of Upper Gwynedd Township!)
JimE wrote:
>
> On Thu, 07 Dec 2000 John Wilson ?wilso...@home.com? wrote:
>
> ?? Totally off topic but the subject - Pencoyd Viaduct intrigues me -
> ?? presumably the name is an Americanisation of the Welsh placename Pencoed
> ?
> ?That's undoubtedly right. That area is full of placenames like Berwyn,
> ?Bryn Mawr, Llanerch, Rydal, Roslyn, etc. Betcha the local
> ?pronounciation of none of these is right. The next two stations toward
> ?Philadelphia from the Pencoyd Viaduct are Cynwyd and Bala. And going up
> ?the ex-Reading Bethlehem line, three commuter stations in succession are
> ?Penllyn, Gwynedd Valley, and North Wales.
>
> Dang, I never thought about that. And I just came down the ex-Reading
> Bethlehem line yesterday from Lansdale to Philly on the R5. I really
> hope that they restore service back to Quakertown, because the train
> really is the best way to get into the city.
>
> I went into Philly for a conference in the Pennsylvania Convention
> Center which is the old Reading Station. I really like how they
> embedded metal in the floor under the train shed to make it looks like
> tracks. I wish that I had lived in the area when the old shed still
> had trains in it.....
>
> JimE (living within view of the ex-Reading Bethlehem Branch)
> (and right next to the Liberty Line ROW)
C. D. Graham
> FWIW, I also understood that "Ardmore" and "Bryn Mawr" meant the same thing
> in their respective languages.
>
Irish.
Mike Szilagyi
Webster's defines moor this way:
1 chiefly British : an expanse of open rolling infertile land
2 : a boggy area; especially : one that is peaty and dominated by
grasses and sedges
Les Gilpin
John Wilson wrote in message <3A2F9D5F...@home.com>...
>
>
>Les Gilpin wrote:
>>
>> Totally off topic but the subject - Pencoyd Viaduct intrigues me -
>
>>
All probably named for the welshmen (and women) who emigrated from the iron
works of Wales to Pensylvania.
Brin-mawer, Chlanerk (or Thlanerk), Kunoyd, Barla, Pen-thlin, Gwineth
Valley - some of my anglo-welsh pronunciations for these places.
One exception tho' - Rydal (Rye-dal) is definitely English! Was in
Westmorland, now county of Cumbria and one time hoem to the poet Wordsworth.
Regards
Les Gilpin
Cardiff
Wales
Les Gilpin
Mike Szilagyi wrote in message <3A312C58...@netreach.net>...
>That term "mawr" or "more" must be related to the English "moor."
>Webster's defines moor this way:
>
>1 chiefly British : an expanse of open rolling infertile land
>2 : a boggy area; especially : one that is peaty and dominated by
>grasses and sedges
In Welsh / ancient British Mawr (also Fawr ) is BIG.
Ardmore I would say is strictly Gaelic since it appears in Ireland and
Scotland.
Les Gilpin
Cardiff
Wales
Carl Zwanzig
>There are photos of the very last train out of Reading terminal (in
>1984) at:
>
>http://users.netreach.net/jprock/RDGterm.htm
Nice photos.
This thread has answered the question that I had, driving up I-76 from
City Line Ave, 'round thanksgiving. I saw the bridge, and feeder wires,
but no catenary.
Which brings up my next question: was there catenary into Reading Terminal?
I vaguely remember it from visits to Phila in the early 80's.
z!
Philip Nasadowski
(Carl Zwanzig) wrote:
> Which brings up my next question: was there catenary into Reading
> Terminal?
> I vaguely remember it from visits to Phila in the early 80's.
Yes.
George Robbins
Yep.
Strangely enough there's still catenary on what remains for the viaduct
between where the commuter tunnel cuts off and the where it's been
demolished. Maybe SEPTA is planning on shuttle service. 8-)
--
George Robbins - now working for work: g...@netaxs.com
Net Access - seemed like the best uucp: ...!uunet!netaxs.com!grr
way to help improve service... play: g...@tharsis.com
jhay
g...@shandakor.tharsis.com (George Robbins) wrote:
> In article <90u4ge$qn3$1...@saltmine.radix.net>, Carl Zwanzig wrote:
>>Mike Szilagyi <szil...@netreach.net> wrote:
>>>There are photos of the very last train out of Reading terminal (in
>>>1984) at:
>>>
>>>http://users.netreach.net/jprock/RDGterm.htm
>>
>>Nice photos.
>>
>>This thread has answered the question that I had, driving up I-76 from
>>City Line Ave, 'round thanksgiving. I saw the bridge, and feeder wires,
>>but no catenary.
>>
>>Which brings up my next question: was there catenary into Reading Terminal?
>>I vaguely remember it from visits to Phila in the early 80's.
>
> Yep.
>
> Strangely enough there's still catenary on what remains for the viaduct
> between where the commuter tunnel cuts off and the where it's been
> demolished. Maybe SEPTA is planning on shuttle service. 8-)
The catenary you see is live. It's used as a 11 kV feeder from the ex-RDG
Callowhill substation which still powers the SEPTA trains on the 9th St.
Branch. Those trains need all the power they can get when they reach the
SEPTA side of the phase break which separates SEPTA's supply from Wayne Jct.
from Amtrak's NEC power in the Tunnel. This isn't the only time catenary
over isolated or abandoned track has been left in place as a feeder:
examples in the Bronx, Devon-West Haven, CT and Landover-New Carrollton, MD
come to mind.
Matthew Mitchell
Mike Szilagyi <szil...@netreach.net> wrote:
>That term "mawr" or "more" must be related to the English "moor."
Nope. Bryn Mawr means 'high hill"
Matt Mitchell
(majored in chemistry, minored in Bryn Mawr)
John and Mary Wilson
>
> John Wilson wrote in message <3A2F9D5F...@home.com>...
> >
> >
> >Les Gilpin wrote:
> >>
> >> Totally off topic but the subject - Pencoyd Viaduct intrigues me -
> >> presumably the name is an Americanisation of the Welsh placename Pencoed
> >> (pronounced in the same way).
> >
> >That's undoubtedly right. That area is full of placenames like Berwyn,
> >Bryn Mawr, Llanerch, Rydal, Roslyn, etc. Betcha the local
> >pronounciation of none of these is right. The next two stations toward
> >Philadelphia from the Pencoyd Viaduct are Cynwyd and Bala. And going up
> >the ex-Reading Bethlehem line, three commuter stations in succession are
> >Penllyn, Gwynedd Valley, and North Wales.
> >>
>
> All probably named for the welshmen (and women) who emigrated from the iron
> works of Wales to Pensylvania.
>
> Brin-mawer, Chlanerk (or Thlanerk), Kunoyd, Barla, Pen-thlin, Gwineth
> Valley - some of my anglo-welsh pronunciations for these places.
You confirm my suspicions. Growing up in the Philly area, the
pronunciations I always heard were Brin-mar, Lanerk, Kinwid, Bala,
Penlin, Gwined Valley ... Nobody over here can pronounce Welsh names,
least of all me.
>
> One exception tho' - Rydal (Rye-dal) is definitely English! Was in
> Westmorland, now county of Cumbria and one time hoem to the poet Wordsworth.
Oops.
>
> Regards
>
> Les Gilpin
> Cardiff
> Wales
73,
JohnW
Lilia Montes-Dornberger
The Pennsylvania Railroad under Cassatt just wanted more gentrified
names. The first Welsh settlers of this are were all Quaker friends of
Penn. The "Welsh Tract" included Upper and Lower Merion and Upper
Chester County.
Jim Dornberger
andrew w kerr