Get to Know the Reading Viaduct Before It’s Transformed

Over the next few months, Friends of the Rail Park will be holding street-level walking tours of the future rail park, following the three-mile elevated and submerged route of the former Reading and Pennsylvania Railroads. The tours will also visit Phase One of the project, slated to break ground within the upcoming year.

Friends of the Rail Park is a nonprofit organization founded to cultivate visions and advocate for a continuous three-mile linear park and recreation path in Philadelphia. The Rail Park is one of the projects that is a part of Fairmount Park Conservancy‘s “Reimagining the Civic Commons” initiative, which received an $11 million investment from the The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and William Penn Foundation early this year.

The tours will begin at the northwest corner of N. 21st St. and Pennsylvania Ave. and conclude at 12th and Noble, the location of phase one of the Rail Park, which is the segment which spans from North Broad along Noble Street, rises east up to the elevated Viaduct, and extends south towards Callowhill Street.

“Walking along the proposed park is absolutely the best way to understand how the two former rail corridors connect to one another and just how many neighborhoods, educational institutions, cultural destinations and historically significant places it will connect,” said Liz Maillie, vice president of Friends of the Rail Park.

The tours will be held by board members of Friends of the Rail Park. On the May 9 tour, they’ll be joined by city council at-large candidate Paul Steinke, who was formerly the general manager of Reading Terminal Market.

“As the former General Manager of the Reading Terminal Market, Paul is intimately familiar with what was once the terminus of the two rail lines that today make up the proposed Rail Park and can offer insight that helps tell the story,” Maillie said.

The tours will be held on Sunday April 26, 3 p.m. – 5 p.m.; Saturday May 9, 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.; Saturday May 30, 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.; and Saturday June 20, 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Image via Mo Manklang