Reading Terminal and Trainshed

The Reading Railroad erected its new terminal in Center City in 1891-93 to challenge the larger Pennsylvania Railroad in carrying passengers. The multi-part building comprised a Renaissance-style “headhouse” by New York architect Francis Kimball, which contained waiting rooms and company offices, and a steel and glass train shed by the Wilson Brothers, Philadelphia’s preeminent engineers. 260 feet wide, this was the largest structure of its kind in the world when it was completed—a title it reclaimed when the even larger train shed of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broad Street Station was destroyed by fire in 1923. When Reading trains were re-routed to a tunnel in 1985, the headhouse and train shed were restored and adapted for use by the Pennsylvania Convention Center and the adjacent Marriott Hotel. The bustling food market in the undercroft beneath the tracks continued to operate during the conversion, and it still thrives.