Newtown (SEPTA station)

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Newtown
Former SEPTA regional rail station
File:Newtownsite10309.JPG
Newtown Station site, October 2009. Platform and signage remain.
Location Penn Street
Newtown, Pennsylvania.
Coordinates Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Owned by SEPTA
Platforms 1 side platform
Tracks 3
Connections Terminal station
Construction
Structure type station shed (demolished)
Parking 20
History
Opened 1873 (RDG)
Closed January 14, 1983
Electrified no
Services
No services
  Former services  
Preceding station   SEPTA.svg SEPTA   Following station
(closed 1983)
Newtown Line Terminus

Newtown is a closed station and terminus of SEPTA's Fox Chase/Newtown Line located on Penn Street in Newtown Borough, Pennsylvania.

History

File:Reading 676 in Newtown, Pennsylvania.jpg
Reading passenger train in Newtown, circa 1948.

In the railroad's original plans, the line was to continue to the north, but this expansion was never built. Newtown Station was built in 1873 and torn down in 1960. A new shelter was constructed in 1976. 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 14, 1983,[1] due to failing diesel train equipment.

SEPTA experimented with the line by operating the Fox Chase-Newtown diesel segment as the Fox Chase Rapid Transit Line. SEPTA insisted on utilizing transit operators from the Broad Street Subway as a cost-saving factor, while Conrail requested that railroad motormen run the service. This was a result of a labor dispute that began when SEPTA inherited approximately 1,700 displaced employees from Conrail. 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 cancelled at that time, and the Newtown 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. The Newtown Station shelter was torn down in 2004.[4]

References

  1. .newtownline.pa-tec.org/history
  2. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. 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
  4. Bucks Views website, documenting out-of-service Newtown train line

External links