Shawmont, a disused station on the ex-Reading Norristown line, was built in 1834 and locally at least is described as being the oldest passenger station existing in this country. Possibly. Anybody else know of any claimants?
http://membrane.com/philanet/Philadelphia/railroads/Shawmont_Train_Station.html
Larry
Camden in Baltimore…The headhouse is said to be the oldest station
Camden Station was built in the late 1850’s and is not the oldest.
I believe Ellicott City, MD is probably the oldest remaining station on the former B&O even though it is no longer used as a station. It is on the National Historic Register.
Ellicott City station was built in 1831 by the B&O and is the oldest station in the USA. The oldest station in use today would be Martinsburg, WV built in 1849.
tom
The Philadelphia, Germantown and Norristown was chartered in 1831. So if Shawmont isn’t the oldest station in the US, its probably the the oldest in Pennsylvania.
Dave H.
SHAWMONT I believe is the oldest. I remember when the R6 Norristown line still stopped there. Its an old building wonder if it was built as a rail station because it looks as if it could have been a house that the railroad might have bought then built the rails beside it.
My first impression when I saw the picture was that it reminded me of a house I had seen several times when I used to live in the southeastern part of the state. Most likely I’m thinking of an old inn and tavern in Chatham (Chester County) along the Lancaster Pike and had been used to serve teamsters travelling between Wilmington and Lancaster.
It could look like a house because when the first steam locomotives were developed, nobody passed out pictures and said, “This is what a train station ought to look like.” In the 18th and 19th century, even large stores and factories in Philadelphia were just slight variations on what the houses of the day looked like. They built what they knew, and the form evolved gradually when they realized what the special needs of the station were going to be.
The building at Shawmont is constructed as a house and still looks exactly as it did when originally built and that was BEFORE the 1834 opening of the rail line as the house was used earlier as a stop on the Schuylkill Navigation Canal which opened in the mid 1820’s.