Ivy Ridge station is a

SEPTA Regional Rail The SEPTA Regional Rail system is a commuter rail network owned by SEPTA and serving the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The system has 13 branches and more than 150 active stations in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, its suburbs and satellite town ...

station in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

. Located at Umbria Street and Parker Avenue in

Northwest Philadelphia Northwest Philadelphia is a section of the city of Philadelphia. The official boundary is Stenton Avenue to the north, the Schuylkill River to the southwest, Northwestern Avenue to the northwest, Roosevelt Boulevard to the south, and Wister Str ...

, it serves the

Manayunk/Norristown Line The Manayunk/Norristown Line is a commuter rail service in Delaware Valley, Southeastern Pennsylvania between Center City Philadelphia and Norristown, Pennsylvania, Norristown, and one of the 13 lines in SEPTA's SEPTA Regional Rail, Regional Rai ...

. The initial station was built in a minimalist design similar to that of Elm Street, Norristown. The current station has a 204-space parking lot. In FY 2013, Ivy Ridge station had a weekday average of 602 boardings and 582 alightings.

History

SEPTA constructed Ivy Ridge in 1980 when service was extended an additional past Manayunk West station, the passenger terminus of the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad ( reporting mark PRR), legal name as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its ...

's (PRR)

Schuylkill Branch The Schuylkill Branch was a rail line owned and operated by the former Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in Pennsylvania. The line ran from the Philadelphia to Harrisburg Main Line at 52nd Street in Philadelphia north via Norristown, Reading, and Pot ...

since 1960. Up until then, the of track had been used by Manayunk trains to change direction within a remotely controlled

interlocking In railway signalling, an interlocking is an arrangement of signal apparatus that prevents conflicting movements through an arrangement of tracks such as junctions or crossings. In North America, a set of signalling appliances and tracks inte ...

where the Schuylkill Branch (by that time, abandoned north of this point) went from two tracks to one. The single-platform Ivy Ridge station was constructed within the space occupied by the abandoned second track, removed in the early 1960s after the PRR discontinued passenger service to Norristown. A moderate-sized park-and-ride lot was included. SEPTA suspended service beyond Cynwyd in March 1986 because of deteriorating track conditions and concerns about the

Manayunk Bridge The Manayunk Bridge (also known as the Manayunk Viaduct, Pencoyd Viaduct, and Schuylkill River Railroad Bridge) is an S-shaped former railroad bridge over the Schuylkill River, Schuylkill Canal and Schuylkill Expressway, that connects Bala Cyn ...

; a shuttle bus ran from Manayunk on the

. In August SEPTA constructed the current platforms along the ex-Reading Norristown line down the bluff from the ex-Pennsylvania line. For a while, the park-and-ride lot sat unused until SEPTA erected a 39-step stairway connecting the derelict PRR upper level and RDG lower level station sites. In the beginning, the steep staircase discouraged ridership, but this changed as ridership grew in the 1990s. While the PRR platform was built to high level standards (a rarity on the SEPTA Regional Rail system), and was constructed before the

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA () is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ...

, the hastily constructed RDG station platform are low level. The derelict upper level platform was eventually demolished in April 2012. As it became clear that SEPTA had no interest in reviving service to the upper Ivy Ridge station, the parking lot was expanded with sections of the PRR track being removed. All remaining Schuylkill Branch trackage in Manayunk was dismantled in June 2010 to make way for the Ivy Ridge Trail, a Philadelphia extension of the

Cynwyd Heritage Trail The Cynwyd Heritage Trail is a 1.8-mile rail trail in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, on Philadelphia's Main Line. The trail surface is partially asphalt and crushed stone. It follows the former SEPTA Cynwyd Line railway line from Cynwyd station to ...

over the Pencoyd Viaduct.

References

External links

* {{SEPTA Regional Rail stations SEPTA Regional Rail stations Railway stations in Philadelphia Railway stations in the United States opened in 1980