Talk:Bethlehem Union Station

Editing access for Infobox limited; Queen of the Valley line

This article's Infobox limits access for embellishing. There was a major line for this station. The Reading Railroad ran the 'Queen of the Valley' and other trains from Jersey City to the Bethlehem, Reading (the line's namesake), Hershey and Harriburg stations. The service was discontinued on by June 30, 1963. This is information that must be added, so that commuter lines are not the only ones noted for this article. Also, the focus of the article at present is on the station's use for north-south servivces, rather than east-west services.Dogru144 (talk) 00:31, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

• This rather puts the cart before the horse, as we don't even have an article on the Queen of the Valley (though we should). As I understand it, however, the Queen of the Valley used the CNJ route between Allentown and New York, which would mean it didn't even use this station. Mackensen (talk) 14:07, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I was probably referring to box access, not access to a Queen of the Valley article, being that I'm aware that there was no article on the train route yet.

One piece of information: the Queen of the Valley went from Harrisburg to Jersey City. CNJ trains went to the CNJ terminal in Jersey City, not New York City. If it were having a western terminus of Allentown this would only be in later years shortly before the end of the line.Dogru144 (talk) 21:42, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

LVRR to Philadelphia

@Cards84664: Can you expand on what the timetables show for an LVRR Bethlehem-Philadelphia service? I know the Reading handled through cars over the Bethlehem Branch (already shown), but I thought that was the extent of it. Mackensen (talk) 12:09, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Reading handled the intermediate stations, but there was a branch off the LVRR main line that only listed Philadelphia. http://cprr.org/Museum/Books/I_ACCEPT_the_User_Agreement/Official_Rail_Guide_1910.pdf Page 344

http://cprr.org/Museum/Books/I_ACCEPT_the_User_Agreement/Official_Rail_Guide_1921.pdf Page 90

Those times all correlate with Philadelphia and Reading trains on the Bethlehem Branch (see page 328); LVRR is just showing the condensed version there for main line service. Mackensen (talk) 15:00, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

If you're seeing matching times, I'm not. Also note that the LVRR has through trains that travel from Buffalo to Reading Terminal and back, not just local service. Cards84664 (talk) 18:47, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

In the LVRR schedules when they cite Philadelphia to Bethlehem service, they credit Reading Railroad as carrying that service. However, if someone would find particular cars as continuing south from Bethlehem to Philadelphia this sort of instance this would represent the Reading Railroad as authorizing LVRR trains or cars on trains to travel over Reading tracks. Source example of Reading trains, Bethlehem to Philadelphia: Lehigh Valley Railroad section of The Official Guide of the Railways, August 1936, 121, 122Dogru144 (talk) 22:01, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

The 1910 Official Guide lists five westbound through trains on the LV main line: Nos. 1, 7, 9, 3, 5. In the table below I list the Jersey City departure times for the LV trains from Jersey City, the departure times from Reading Terminal in Philadelphia, and the Reading train numbers (on the Bethlehem Branch). The departure times from Philadelphia match precisely. The arrival times in Bethlehem are earlier for the Reading trains in every case, which is what you'd expect for a connecting service:

LV number	Jersey City	Reading number	Philadelphia	Bethlehem
1	8:04 AM	309	8:30 AM	10:22 AM
7	10:04 AM	311	10:00 AM	12:16 PM
9	12:14 PM	325	12:30 PM	2:12 PM
3	6:20 PM	323	6:30 PM	8:48 PM
5	8:16 PM	327	8:40 PM	10:38 PM

Railroads conveyed each others sleepers all the time, but that's not the same thing as running a train over someone else's tracks (such as LV service into New York, or the joint service over the New York Branch). Mackensen (talk) 22:29, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Acknowledged. Self-reverting now. Cards84664 (talk) 05:59, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

"Railroads conveyed each others sleepers all the time, but that's not the same thing as running a train over someone else's tracks" Actually happened often, look at the New York to Florida trains. They went over R,F&P tracks in Virginia. This is what pooled trains --cooperative efforts of different companies-- were. But I think that this Bethlehem to Philadelphia train was a Reading Company train. Dogru144 (talk) 14:50, 21 February 2019 (UTC) --As clearly shown by the the helpful table above. 1936 Guide ID's the train as a Reading Co. trainDogru144 (talk) 14:51, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

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