Mar 25, 2016

The Union Terrace Train


The Conrail engine backs across Walnut Street, as it delivers a flatbed of large granite slaps and blocks to the Wentz Memorial Company, by 20th and Hamilton Streets. Years earlier, the spur route extended across Hamilton Street and terminated at the building across from school district stadium, now occupied by the park department. On it's run to Wentz's, it went through the auto junkyard, continued on past the now closed Allentown Metal Works, and crossed the trestle in Lehigh Parkway. At Union Terrace the track was next to the former ice skating pond, behind the WPA Amphitheater Stage Mound. This photograph was taken by Dave Latshaw in the 1979, and is part of the Mark Rabenold collection. Rabenold is a local train historian, specializing in Allentown's former branch lines.

reprinted from September 2011

1 comment:

  1. The spur used to run up to Linden Street, where the old Pepsi-Cola bottling works were. It was later taken over by the Parks Department about 1960/61. When I was a boy, my dad took me to the plant to see the bottling operation. The train used to drop off supplies for the Pepsi plant, and then the trucks would be loaded with cases of Pepsi and be dispatched.

    If you look very close on Google Maps, you can still see the old spur right-of-way

    ReplyDelete

ANONYMOUS COMMENTS SELECTIVELY PUBLISHED. SIGNED COMMENTS GIVEN MORE LEEWAY.