The evening I got set to put this site together, I had been planning on a detour home from Exton station to take a few pictures of the mostly-abandoned R3 stations. Imagine my surprise when, while driving down Gay Street, the gentleman whose site I’d been absorbed in all day (WCJim) happened to walk by. I pulled over for a quick chat, and the seeds for R3WestChester.org took root when he invited me to a planning committee meeting later that week.

Before this, Market Street Station was just a rusty relic I never gave a second thought about as I sped by on my way to 202. After saying goodbye to Jim, I continued through town and parked at Lorenzo’s to get a closer look. Check out the entire set after the jump.

This is the view from the street. What I forgot to shoot was the little drop-off point I stood on as I took this photo: it probably let drivers drop R3 passengers off at the curb before merging back into traffic on Market.

They’re not SEPTA, but they’ll do. West Chester Railroad Company takes it’s namesake from some of the railroads that operated in the borough during the 1800’s, and they run a tourist train to Glen Mills on the weekends. They’ve also taken responsibility (or as much of it as they can afford to assume) for the upkeep of the track that the R3 left behind in 1986. WCRR has been here since about the late 1990’s.

Thieves cut down the copper wires that provided electricity for SEPTA trains before the line was abandoned. They’ve since been arrested, and SEPTA took down the remaining copper to avoid putting any strain on the steal beams holding it up across the tracks.

The end of the line, facing the street.

One last plug for the WCRR guys. Try saying their website out loud: West Chesterrrrrrr dot net.

I’ve got more photos in my Flickr account, and you can tag your photos on that site with “r3wc” to appear in this feed. Next week, we’ll look around at Nield St. Station at West Chester University, and then continue further on down the old R3 line to see what’s up with other old station stops like Westtown and Cheyney.