The Reading Railroad Station

One contentious point with residents was Perkasie’s sparse wooden passenger station built in 1874, which also housed agricultural products like guano. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad responded in 1892 with a luxurious train station for Perkasie, also designed by Wilson Brothers, complete with heated waiting rooms for men and women.

The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad’s passenger and freight schedule in 1896 showed how Perkasie and its neighboring towns on the railroad’s Bethlehem Branch relied on their connections to Philadelphia. On a typical weekday, the first train from Philadelphia ar-rived in Perkasie at 5:28 a.m., and the last train from Philadelphia came into town at 10:15 p.m. While 11 trains came into Perkasie from Philadelphia, only sev-en went back to Philadelphia. On weekends, only four trains came to Perkasie.

%d bloggers like this: