Train Station

A deal signed yesterday between SEPTA and the Berwyn Devon Business and Professional Association will make parking in Berwyn a lot easier this year. The agreement gives patrons of businesses in the area between Woodside Avenue and Knox Avenue free after-hours parking in the Berwyn train station parking lot. "We're trying to alleviate the problems of doing business in Berwyn and Devon," said Matthew DiDomenico Sr., president-elect of the business association. "Now we have use of the entire Berwyn train station lot. " The move is the first success in the association's four-month-old effort to revitalize the business district, he said.

The Pocopson Planning Commission learned last week that the former Pocopson train station may become a bed-and-breakfast inn. John Thomas presented informal plans for the building to the commission Wednesday. He needs approval of the Zoning Hearing Board, however, before he can proceed further. Township ordinances allow bed-and-breakfasts only as a conditional use, said Planning Commission secretary Suzanne Williamson. Commission members re-elected Hans P. Van Heyst to be chairman, and Williamson as secretary, during their reorganization meeting.

Jean Shiber is a member of the Sharon Hill Historical Society. That qualifies her as a dreamer. The society was formed two months ago with the sole purpose of saving the borough's 118-year-old railroad station from the wrecking ball. The one-story structure, closed since 1983, is slated for demolition around the end of this month. The only thing that could stop the wreckers would be an order from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission saying the station was eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

Depending on who was testifying before the Lower Gwynedd Township Zoning Hearing Board Tuesday night, the operation of a gourmet food store at the Gwynedd Valley commuter train station would be an asset to the community or a source of trash, odor and traffic. At issue was the Trueblood Construction Co.'s appeal of a stop-work order issued by the township in July when officials learned that the firm was renovating a building that once was the train station's ticket office so it could be used as the food store.

Coatesville City Council this week appointed a seven-member committee to develop plans to construct a new commuter train station. City manager Wayne "Ted" Reed said that the committee will help with plans and financing for the station. The city wants to buy a 4-acre site along the Main Line tracks between 10th and 11th Avenues for the station. The site, which at one time was occupied by a concrete plant, is owned by Trans-Material Inc. of West Chester, according to Reed.

I was the architectural lighting designer for the historic restoration of the interior and exterior of the Amtrak 30th Street Station (Inquirer, July 19). In the 10 years since that project was completed, our firm has continued as lighting designer for most of the renovation work in and around the station. The angel was not overlooked when we conceived the new lighting. It is a beautiful statue but it is one of many elements that make 30th Street Station a unique architectural treasure.

Plans to build a 60-room hotel at the Devon train station were presented Tuesday to the Easttown Planning Commission. The proposal by Paul Restall Associates Inc. of Swarthmore calls for a three-story hotel to be called the Inn at Devon Station. The existing ticket station would be converted into a lobby and breakfast area. A new ticket station would be built farther down the tracks on the east side. No eating or drinking facilities are planned for the hotel, although guests would receive a complimentary breakfast.

The Tredyffrin Township Board of Supervisors passed three ordinances Monday night that run the gamut from preserving a historic train station to prohibiting lead pipes to carry drinking water. The legislation was passed unanimously by the supervisors after three public hearings that lasted a total of 20 minutes. The SEPTA train station in Strafford was added to the township's list of buildings of historical significance. Ann Cook, a planning commission member and chairman of the historic commission, said the station was constructed in 1867 as the Wayne train station and was moved to Tredyffrin in 1876 as part of an exhibition marking the U.S. Centennial.

Cooks grilled filet mignon and salmon on portable propane stoves in the vault space on the second floor. On the first floor, bartenders served mixed drinks through the teller spaces where customers normally sign the backs of their checks. Their guests, more than 200 people dressed in tuxedos and flowing evening gowns, had paid $150 each to attend the grand affair in, of all places, blue-collar Coatesville. But those peculiarities aside, "The Lukens Blast" - a fund-raising event for the Coatesville Third Avenue train station - was, well, a blast.

Lansdowne residents questioned the Borough Council at Wednesday night's meeting about the status of the Lansdowne commuter train station, which was gutted by fire in April. Council President Robert W. Alpigini said SEPTA officials estimated that the repairs to the fire-damaged station would cost between $250,000 and $400,000. SEPTA will not raze the building, Alpigini said, but instead will repair it. Like area residents, the council is concerned with maintaining the architectural integrity of the building, Alpigini said.

In July 2010, my boyfriend Eric and I were five days into our first trip together. After two days in Marseille, France, we planned to take a train to Nice. From there, we'd fly to Rome. When we got to the train station, Eric asked a conductor (in French!) which train went to Nice. We boarded, settled into comfortable seats, and pulled out our books for the trip. As we pulled away from the platform, the conductor began announcing the stops. After a minute, I realized the cities were going the wrong direction.

It's not the image nor the label one often associates with dedicated doctors. But on Sunday afternoon, "Rockin' Docs" will be rockin' out at the Electric Factory, complete with special effects and pretty impressive music sets offered by five bands. The unusual element: Most of the rockers are area physicians. For Drs. Jeremy Jaffe and Ken Einhorn, founders of Rockin' Docs for Diabetes Cure, this second annual event has deep personal significance. Their event's purpose is to raise both awareness and funds for Type 1 (juvenile diabetes)

He is 80 years old now, but Paul Beller still remembers his interrupted childhood in Vienna. He remembers the good times, when his father and grandfather owned a plywood business and he went to school with the other neighborhood children. And then everything changed in 1938, when the Nazis marched into his city. "They took the business away from my father and I wasn't allowed to go to school with non-Jewish children," said Beller, a retired federal employee who now lives in Monroe Township, Gloucester County.

NJ Transit's modern train station in Hamilton, just north of Trenton, is a favorite with commuters, with lots of parking and easy access to I-295. The station is also a favorite among death-seekers. Five people in two years have been killed by trains there, all apparent suicides. Amtrak trains, which don't stop at Hamilton, speed by the station at up to 135 m.p.h. on their way to and from New York City. In each of the five Hamilton deaths, the victims stood or jumped in front of Amtrak trains.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia has gone to imaginative extremes to try to stop commuters from illegally riding the roofs of trains - hosing down the scofflaws with red paint, threatening them with dogs, and appealing for help from religious leaders. Now the authorities have an intimidating and possibly even deadly new tactic: suspending rows of grapefruit-size concrete balls to rake over the top of trains as they pull out of stations, or when they go through rail crossings. Authorities hope the balls - which could deliver serious blows to the head - will be enough to deter defiant roof riders.

PHILADELPHIA Tasco DROPs the bomb City Councilwoman Marian Tasco will retire tomorrow, collect a $478,057 pension payment, then return to work Monday after she is sworn in to serve her seventh term. Francis Bielli, executive director of the city's Board of Pensions and Retirement, said that he was recently notified of when Tasco, who is enrolled in the controversial Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP), would retire. Tasco did not respond to requests for comment.

Murray Dubin is coauthor, with Daniel R. Biddle, of Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America As a calendar year ebbs, we find ourselves looking back and trying to take a measure of its flow. What kind of year was it? Who died? Was a job lost or gained? Health problems? The kids? Fall in love? In the end, was 2011 a good year or not? Often that is an easy question (Vince Fumo had a bad year, for instance), but it can be complicated, a balancing act between what life gave you and what was taken away.

About 50 people gathered for a brief Occupy Philadelphia demonstration at 30th Street Station on Friday that was followed by a guest appearance at a labor rally. Shortly before 6 p.m., the movement's familiar call to attention - "mic check!" - was shouted inside the station as the participants congregated near the main train-schedule board. For several minutes, they chanted that their "fight for fairness will never die" while Amtrak police tried to figure out what was going on. The only negative reaction they received came from a man in the taxi queue as the demonstrators left the station.

FREEHOLD, N.J. - Things had not been going Arthur Morgan 3d's way recently. He had been quarrelling with his girlfriend over their 2-year-old daughter, with each taking the other to court. He had not seen little Tierra Morgan-Glover in a month, and he had gotten fired from his job at a lumberyard a week earlier. On Nov. 21, Morgan made arrangements with the girl's mother, Imani Benton, to take his daughter to see a movie about dancing penguins. When they failed to return after a few hours, Benton called police.

The business community in the tiny Chester County town of Malvern is looking forward to better times. If an economic recovery kicks in, that would be welcome, too. But for now, what will constitute better times for the stores and restaurants that line King Street, the borough's main commerce corridor, is when a construction project in the heart of town since February 2010 finally comes to an end, possibly by Nov. 1. The goal of the $9.9...