Re: (rshsdepot) Quakertown, PA

["Gene Paoli" <stationman_@_prodigy.net>]

The Quakertown depot and frieght station were designed by the Wilson
Brothers & Company of Philidelphia as well as the Lansdale, PA P&R station
and frieght depot which is a carbon copy of Quakertown's.
(ref: Phila engr&bldg record)
Gene Paoli
stationman_@_prodigy.net

- ----- Original Message -----
From: <jdent1_@_optonline.net>
To: <rshsdepot_@_lists.railfan.net>
Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 6:11 PM
Subject: (rshsdepot) Quakertown, PA


From the Philadelphia Intelligencer...

Grant will help spruce up train station

Plans call for the $100,000 to help repair the
outside of the freight building.

BY BRIAN CALLAWAY
Staff Writer

QUAKERTOWN -Another $100,000 has been awarded for
the renovation of the Quakertown Train Station.

The federal grant will be used to repair the exterior
of the freight building, while previously secured
funding will be used this year to remodel the train
station proper, located at the intersection of Broad
and Front streets.

"We've been working on this for a long time," said
Richard Mindler, president of the Quakertown Train
Station Historical Society, "so it's great to see
this all coming in."

The $100,000 will go toward cleaning the outside walls and replacing the
roof on the 2,500-square-foot freight station.

Mindler said the group is also preparing to go out to
bid on train station projects to be paid for with a
$600,000 grant received in 2000. Those projects include
roof repairs and the installation of new sidewalks and
windows.

When completed, plans call for the 100-year-old station
to have several historical displays, a community meeting
area and other attractions.

The funding for both grants comes from the Transportation
Equity Act for the 21st Century, administered by the
Federal Transit Administration.

The new grant was good news for more than just the
historical society.

"We're really excited that they got it," said Pam Coleman,
manager of the downtown economic initiative Quakertown
Alive!, which has worked with the society to secure other
funding. "The train station is a vital piece of our
revitalization -it's spreading revitalization around it.

"It's a good expenditure of federal funds."

Passenger service to the station stopped in 1983. It was
then used for community functions for several years, but
a 1989 fire gutted the building and left it largely unusable.

Since 1990, the Quakertown Train Station Historical Society
has held fund-raisers and lobbied for grants to get the
station back in tiptop condition, a state Mindler said
was finally within reach.

"We were hoping to have everything ready this year for the
centennial," he said. Instead, the work should be done this
fall in time for the borough's annual Autumn Alive! festival.
"But as long as it will be done at some point -great, bring
it on."




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===========
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org


=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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