Reading Terminal and Trainshed

About this property

The Reading Terminal ( RED-ing) is a complex of buildings that includes the former Reading Company main railroad station located in the Market East section of Center City Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It comprises the Reading Terminal Headhouse, Trainshed, and Reading Terminal Market (known for its farmers market and the presence of Pennsylvania Dutch food vendors). In 1889, the Philadelphia and Reading Railway decided to build a train depot, passenger station, and company headquarters on the corner of 12th and Market Streets. The move came eight years after the Pennsylvania Railroad opened its Broad Street Station several blocks away at 15th and Market Streets, and one year after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opened its 24th Street Station at 24th and Chestnut Streets. The chosen location was occupied by an open-air market that had been in continuous operation since 1853. After loud complaints and much negotiation, the railroad agreed to purchase the markets for $1 million and move them to a new structure: the Reading Terminal Market, located to the rear (north) of the headhouse at 12th and Filbert Streets. This required the trainshed and all of its tracks to be constructed one story above street level, with trains entering and exiting the station via the Reading Viaduct and Ninth Street Branch. The headhouse was designed in 1891 by Francis H. Kimball, and the train shed by Wilson Brothers & Company. Construction began that same year, and the station opened on January 29, 1893. At the time, the trainshed was one of the largest single-span arched-roof structures in the world. The following year, the Wilson Brothers would build an even larger trainshed three blocks away, for the Pennsylvania Railroad's Broad Street Station. The Reading's trainshed is now the only such structure left in the United States. The complex was fronted on Market by an eight-story headhouse that housed the passenger station and company headquarters. Built in the Italian Renaissance style, the headhouse has brick bearing walls with cast-iron columns and timber floors. Interior finishes include molded ornamental plaster and marble with cast-iron detailing. Reading Terminal served the railroad's inter-city and regional rail trains, many of which are still running as part of the SEPTA Regional Rail system that connects Center City with outlying neighborhoods and suburbs, especially to the north. Many of those trains would be converted to electric power in a project that began in 1928 and basically completed in 1933, with the Newtown Branch being electrified to Fox Chase in 1966.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Philadelphia County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Philadelphia County.

More historic places in Pennsylvania

Browse all historic places in Pennsylvania.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Pennsylvania history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.