Open Sat & Sun: Newtown Square Railroad Museum

In the 19th century, “high tech” meant railroads.  They could whisk passengers off to places that could take hours or days to travel to by horseback or by foot.  And they could do the same with merchandise, with farm products, with livestock and fresh milk.  They revolutionized the world of the 19th century by bringing people closer together.  Every small town vied to be a stop on a new railroad line. 

Newtown Square was no different.  In the 1890’s, it was a sleepy crossroads town in a farming community.  Farmers coming east from Chester County would drive their livestock down the West Chester Turnpike, and stop at the Newtown Square Hotel on West Chester Pike - with pens across the street for the livestock that they had to drive in to sell at markets in Philadelphia.  But things started to change in 1894.  A passenger train began running from Philadelphia to Newtown Square, cutting west across Bryn Mawr Avenue near Malin Road on a bridge and then a high trestle over the creek, through the Caley farm behind the present day homes on Aronimink Drive, and Horton and Caley Roads, and then crossing Rt. 252 at grade near the TD Bank, and ending at the Newtown Square station on the west side of Rt. 252.  There was a thriving business at that location as well – a lumber yard, and the railroad was able to boost their business as well.  

The passenger service did not last long – a trolley line was built on West Chester Pike, and it made more stops with more frequency, and continued on to West Chester, and so the railroad stopped offering passenger service in 1908.  But the freight line continued to run through Newtown until 1963. 

The railroad ties remain in place back in the woods where the train used to run.  The lumber yard closed after a bad fire in the 1980’s, which destroyed the old passenger station.  The old freight station survived, vacant and abandoned and vandalized.  And then the property was acquired for development in the late 1990’s, and the freight station was threatened with demolition.  The Newtown Square Historical Society rode to the rescue, raising money to have the building picked up and moved on a trailer to its current resting place, at the old Drexel Lodge property on the south side of West Chester Pike roughly across from Mostardi’s Nursery.  The Society and several energetic young men, Sam Coco and Jack Grant, then raised money to restore the station, fill it with wonderful memorabilia from the history of the rail line, and acquire and install actual engines and rail cars to make the freight station feel at home. 

You can come visit the old freight station at the Newtown Square Railroad Museum.  It is open each Saturday and Sunday, June thru September from 1-4:00 p.m.  It is interesting for railroad buffs, and a good place to bring children to climb aboard the old trains, ring some loud railroad bells, and tour the museum.  There is a train themed playground as well.  And the price is right:  it is FREE.  (Though donations are always welcome). 

Check out their website as well at http://www.newtownsquare-railroadmuseum.org/ .  A street address for your GPS:  4194-4222 W Chester Pike, Newtown Square, PA  19073.