George School station

George School station is a defunct railroad station at George School, a private Quaker boarding and day high school in Middletown Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The original station was built by the Philadelphia, Newtown and New York Railroad in 1893 and burned in 1905. It was replaced with a station that was moved from Huntingdon Valley, further down the Newtown Branch. That station was demolished in 1971. A cinder 'platform' was used as a flagstop by both the Reading Railroad and SEPTA Regional Rail. SEPTA closed the station and several others in 1983 when train service was suspended.

George School
Former railroad station
George School station, c. 1905
LocationGeorge School, Middletown, Pennsylvania
Coordinates40.2123°N 74.9389°W / 40.2123; -74.9389
Owned bySEPTA
Tracks1
Construction
Structure typedemolished
History
Opened1905 (RDG)
ClosedJanuary 18, 1983[1]
Electrifiedno
Former services
Preceding station SEPTA Following station
Holland
toward Reading Terminal
 Newtown Line Newtown
Terminus
Preceding station Reading Railroad Following station
Holland
toward Cheltenham
 Newtown Branch Newtown
Terminus

History

George School Station was a stop on the Reading Railroad's Newtown Line. The Philadelphia, Newtown and New York Railroad built the station as an inducement for the George School founders to choose this site, originally the Worth Farm, over 3 others in final consideration. The PN&NY also offered to haul all the building materials for the Main building, shown in the background of the photo below, at their cost, as an additional incentive. There was also a passing siding and a coal trestle at the site. The stone piers for the trestle still remain, although the tracks and steel supports were removed during the 1960s. The PN&NY was later absorbed into the Reading Railroad system. It later became a part of SEPTA's Fox Chase Rapid Transit Line. The station, and all of those north of Fox Chase, was closed on January 18, 1983 due to failing diesel train equipment.[1]

In addition, a labor dispute began within the SEPTA organization when the transit operator inherited 1,700 displaced employees from Conrail. SEPTA insisted on utilizing transit operators from the Broad Street Subway to operate Fox Chase-Newtown diesel trains, while Conrail requested that railroad engineers continue to run the service. When a federal court ruled that SEPTA had to use Conrail employees in order to offer job assurance, SEPTA cancelled Fox Chase-Newtown trains.[2] Service in the diesel-only territory north of Fox Chase was "temporarily suspended" at that time, and George School station still appears in publicly posted tariffs.[3]

Although rail service was initially replaced with a Fox Chase-Newtown shuttle bus, patronage remained light, and the Fox Chase-Newtown shuttle bus service ended in 1999.[4]

References
  1. Kennedy, Sara (October 21, 1983). "SEPTA to Boost Rail Service 13%". The Philadelphia Inquirer. p. 1–2. Retrieved July 14, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. Tulsky, Fredric N. (January 29, 1982). "Conrail Staff Must Run Trains: court ruling bars SEPTA takeover". Philadelphia Inquirer. SEPTA must use Conrail workers rather than its own personnel to run trains over the region's 13 commuter lines, a special federal court has ruled in a decision that offers some job assurance for 1,700 Conrail employees next year. The special court, in an opinion issued Wednesday, ruled that SEPTA had acted legally in October when it replaced Conrail workers with its former subway operators on the line.
  3. SEPTA Tariff No. 154; effective July 1, 2009 Archived May 31, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  4. newtownline.pa-tec.org/history Archived 2011-07-27 at the Wayback Machine
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