Past Meeting

At our public meeting on Sunday, March 18, 2012 the featured presentation was:

The Main Line of Public Works: The Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad
and The Pennsylvania Railroad from Morgan’s Corner to Intersection

by Ted Xaras

Eminent local railroad historian and Emeritus Professor of Art Ted Xaras took us on a tour of the earliest extant views of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad and its corporate successor, the Pennsylvania Railroad, with emphasis on scenes in our Western Main Line area - then and now.

The accompanying photograph is a very rare view of the “Canal Collector’s Office at Paoli” which was built for the first Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad station there in the early 1830s. How rare is this photo, how close did it come to being lost, who conserved it, and where were “Morgan’s Corner” and “Intersection”? — Those who joined us for the presentation learned the answers to these questions and much more.