Ranya's Ramblings

Colmar is a station on SEPTA's Lansdale - Doylestown line, located in the village of Colmar in southern Hatfield Township, PA, at the junction of the Lansdale - Doylestown line and Pennsylvania State Route 309.  History Old station building The building was originally built by the North Pennsylvania railroad in 1856 as Line Lexington Station, though the station itself was not in the nearby village of Line Lexington.  The station was renamed in 1871 to Colmar, as was the village of Colmar Sometime around 20 or so years ago, the station was rebuilt.  Tour Train at Colmar station Colmar station is like your average Doylestown Branch station. That is, a shelter on a full - high platform in the middle of nowhere. Most of them except for Lansdale, Link Belt, Delaware Valley University, and Doylestown have the exact same design of shelter. See? Colmar is not much different than most of those stations.  Benches The inside of the s

Delaware Valley University is a station on SEPTA's Lansdale - Doylestown line, located in Farm School, Doylestown Township, PA, immediately outside Doylestown Borough.  History Old station shack wasn't much different This station was built by the Reading Railroad at some point in the late 1890s for National Farm School, and agricultural school. Unsurprisingly, this caused the station to be named Farm School, which caused the town itself to be named Farm School.  National Farm School ended up changing its name a few times, shown in the timeline below 1896: National Farm School - first name 1948: National Agricultural College 1960: Delaware Valley College of Science and Agriculture 1989: Delaware Valley College  2014: Delaware Valley University - Current Name Naturally, the train station changed names a few times as well to reflect this. While the university was changing names a few times, the train station ended up getting rebuilt some time around 2012 or

Sign Link Belt is a station on SEPTA's Lansdale - Doylestown line, located in the southern portion of the small village of Line Lexington, PA, near county line road.  History Link Belt Factory and Station Link Belt is a company that started in 1880 in Belle Mead, Iowa. Link Belt primarily makes machinery, such as cranes, among other things. In 1952, Link Belt opened a factory aling County Line Road, in Hatfield Township, Pennsylvania, just south of the villeg of Line Lexington. Not long after, the Reading Railroad made a rail spur that went to the factory, and then a platform for a station, aptly titled "Link Belt" after the factory. The Link Belt station was made for workers at the factory to get to and from their houses and the factory.  The Link Belt factory closed in 1983, after 31 years of operation, and was replaced with other factories. Sometime later, SEPTA not only took control of operations, but they also completely remodeled the station as well.  So

Fortuna is a station on SEPTA's Lansdale - Doylestown line, one of three stations located in Hatfield Township (along with Colmar and Link Belt). This specific station is for the small village of Fortuna, located at the intersection of Cowpath road and Broad Street within Hatfield township, and named after the station. Fortuna Station often trades places with Angora for least used station on SEPTA's Regional Rail system. History Fortuna Station before it was rebuilt According to an old newspaper article from the Philadelphia Inquirer , Fortuna station was named after Fortuna, a cow that was named after Fortuna, the Roman god of fortune. The road it was on, Cowpath road, used to be an actual cowpath.  Sometime around the late 1880s, a Reading Railroad train struck and killed Fortuna, who was using the cow path. Fortuna had no chance to get away from the train. Cows of the time were unsurprisingly much slower than trains. The owner of Fortuna understood th