Wishing you all safe and speedy travels on this #TransitTuesday. This 1965 photo shows commuters boarding Silverliner rail cars at the Levittown–Tullytown Station on the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Trenton-Levittown line. Th Silverliners were electric commuter rail cars began serving the Philadelphia area in 1958. The cars were designed and built by the Budd Company of Philadelphia, and were put into use by both the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) regional rail lines. Like so many of Philadelphia’s historic manufacturing powerhouses, the Budd Company saw its operations sold off and relocated over time. Its headquarters in the Hunting Park neighborhood of Philadelphia were once known for conducting pioneering work in the design, fabrication, and welding of light steel sheets. But by 2003, both this site and its experimental facilities on Red Lion Road in Northeast Philadelphia had ceased operations. Both sites lay vacant for decades until the Red Lion site was purchased in 2018 with the intent to develop a warehouse complex, while the Hunting Park location was purchased last week with plans for adaptive reuse. This photograph is from the Hagley Library’s collection of Philadelphia railroad stations, Red Arrow Lines trolley track and bus photographs (Acc.1995.238). You can view more items in this collection by visiting its page in our Digital Archives.
