Hike #1197; Flourtown to Wayne
2/2/19 Flourtown to Strafford with Jennifer Berndt, James Quinn, Craig Craig, Ric Giantisco, Lyz Abeth, and Jennifer Tull
This next hike would be a point to point I’d put together as another sort of random mish-mash specifically for the benefit of my dear old friend
Old Reading Plymouth Branch
Just about every year, I have the privilege of attending Conrad’s birthday dinner. This is not something that everyone goes to, and he counts only so many friends among those who get to attend. It’s always a big dinner with multiple courses and great company.
Conrad gave me a call a couple of weeks away from the event to make sure I could attend, and I didn’t have anything in particular planned for the weekend already, so it made sense for me to come up with a hike that connected directly to Wayne.
The ol' gang
I started looking a multiple different ways it could be done. There are several more that I may use for future ones.
Conrad and I go way back. We became friends through our mutual friend Eric Schneider. He introduced me because I always had some left field ridiculously stupid joke. I would tell them to Conrad at the end of the day, and he’d say something like “That...was remotely humorous...”. Coming from Conrad, that was quite a compliment!
Wissahickon Green Ribbon on the rail bed
I was surprised and honored that when his birthday came up in February of 1997, I received one of many written invitations, but mine was a “Plus Invitation”, which meant I was invited to stay the night.
Conrad had the greatest party location of any of my friends throughout school. It was a then sort of abandoned storage barn from the farm where his father built Common Sense for Animals (today, much of that barn is the non profit headquarters).
The Wissihickon
There was a pool table, a giant swing, half basketball court, motorless towable golf cart, swivel chairs, beds, TV/VCR, karaoke machine, a giant claw foot bath tub, and a beer drinking computer whiz named John Miller.
The old Plymouth Branch
The birthday celebration was the first of many Loft Parties that I attended. Conrad’s ability to bring together an eclectic, intelligent group of people was something otherworldly. My life changed when I began hanging out with this group. The conversations were a level up from the mundane day to day high school angst-fest. One could almost feel their IQ rising in the midst of Conrad, Eric, JB, Eddie, Derek, Shayne, and others.
The old rail bed
I came up with a great route for this hike that would bring me back to some places I’d not explored since 2008, and others that I’d criss crossed a bit more recently. In between, there were tons of little pieces of land that I had wanted to explore, and the hike would end up being exactly the type of signature eccentric thing that I’ve become known for arranging.
We met near the end point, a shopping center at the end point of the Radnor Trail, actually in West Wayne. We met and shuttled from there to an area known as Flourtown near Fort Washington State Park.
Along Wissahickon Green Ribbon
The settlement of Flourtown was so named for an old flouring mill that used to be located at the town center area. We parked at the area of the Giant Food Store in Flourtown, near the McDonalds to begin the hike.
Wissahickon
In retrospect, I should have used the Acme to the south as the starting point, because the parking lot was part of the former railroad line that we would be starting on.
Wissahickon Green Ribbon...not green.
It was no real big deal. We crossed the Bethlehem Pike out front, walked behind the Dunkin Donuts, and cut through parking lots to the south to through condo complex to reach the fill for the old railroad.
This was originally the Plymouth Branch of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. The Reading purchased an existing short line out of Conshohoken in 1870, rebuilt and extended it to Oreland in the east, passing through Flourtown. We walked atop the berm at first, and then the paved trail joined it.
Lovely scene on Wissahickon Green Ribbon
The trail here serves as a connector to the Wissahickon Green Ribbon, a long distance trail we’ve hiked in the past that follows pretty much the entire Wissahickon Creek from it’s confluence with the Schuylkill in Manayunk to it’s head waters.
Along Wissahickon Green Ribbon
The trail went across the former rail bridge, and then continued on the railroad bed ahead for a bit. The main route of the trail joined from the right, and soon after the trail turned off to the left away from the railroad bed through Fort Washington State Park.
Along Wissahickon Green Ribbon
The park is so named for a fortification during the Philadelphia Campaign of the American Revolution. Washington and his army encamped for one month from November 11 through December 11 1777 in the area that is now the grounds of the state park, before moving to spend the rest of the Winter at Valley Forge.
Old stone arch over the Wissahickon
The trail follows very closely to the Wissahickon Creek through here. I’d hiked this a few times before in this section. It’s one of the easiest parts of the entire Wissahickon Green Ribbon, because it’s paved. Much of the trail to the north of here is foot path, and after a short road walk, the Wissahickon Gorge is entered and the main route is the old Forbidden Drive. The character of the trail substantially changes at Fort Washington.
Erdenheim Farm
Much of the theme of this hike is the Cross County Trail, one of many Montgomery County trail plans coming up.
Trail at Whitemarsh Foundation
I had looked over several maps trying to predict what exactly this trail would do. It seemed at first that it was sort of following the route that this former Plymouth Branch used to take. So much of that rail line has been obliterated that it was necessary to route around a different way...almost an entirely different way.
As it turns out, the route has pretty much been decided and I’ve since found out that much of it is under construction now further to the east. From Flourtown, it will follow Wissahickon Green Ribbon, then parallel the PA Turnpike.
Dixon Meadow Preserve
It will connect to the Pennypack Greenway on the same old Pennypack Road that we had followed on our recent hike! We didn’t know it at the time, but we were on the Cross County Trail.
This time, we would end up at least somewhat on the future route, but we did a bunch of other odd stuff that made it probably more interesting than the finished product would be, and the rest of the way over to Wayne would be the typical mish mash.
Dixon Meadow Preserve
We continued on the Wissahickon Green Ribbon through Fort Washington to where it ends at West Valley Green Road and Stenton Avenue.
Dixon Meadow Preserve
From there, our route was the same as the planned future Cross County route. We turned right on Stenton, across the street along the edge of the farm fences. I figured that some of this route will also work with the proposed Wissahickon reroute. I can’t find the article now, but I read somewhere that they will close the gap with the road walk between Forbidden Drive and Fort Washington.
When we reached Flourtown Road, we turned to the left. Here, it looks as though the Cross County Trail will go straight, and then across farm lands where at least some of it is already in place, but I don’t know how to get to any of it yet.
Whitemarsh Foundation Dixon Meadow House
The snow was absolutely stunning everywhere on this day. It wasn’t too tough to walk in because it wasn’t very deep at all. Just a little slick at times.
We soon passed by the lovely Erdenheim Farm, and then reached the intersection with Thomas Road. We sort of went straight and off to the left a bit, and then climbed over a fence to reach an improved trail out over wetlands.
New trail?
This entire preserve is known as the Dixon Meadow Preserve. It was part of the Erdenheim Farm, which has been in agricultural use for over three hundred years. Farming families still maintain the farm use in most aspects of it, but it has all been preserved as part of the Whitemarsh Foundation. Some sections are set aside for recreation and for interpretation.
There was a wetland restoration area we passed through here; the trail went out over a large boardwalk in this field section, which was pretty nice.
Informal trail
The trail seemed to kind of end at either end of the preserve, so I wondered if this was part of a more regional trail plan, or if the main trail would go more like the map showed, to the north a bit through fields. Google maps shows like it’s there, but we didn’t see any sign of it.
The trail left the boardwalk and got closer to the road again. It then passed by the lovely Dixon Meadow House, and old farm house. We continued past that. The trail had ended, but it was still pretty along the road.
Trail through development
Before reaching the next intersection, there was some sort of new construction going on along the left side of the road. We turned here into it to see what was going on. There was equipment out there, and then I noticed that there was another path on the outside of the fence. I opted to go back and we would follow the side of the fence closer to the nearest development, along the backs of the houses along Fountain Green Road.
McCarthy Park
The road was closed off, and seemed like only a pedestrian route. All of the houses along this were more of a Pacific Southwest style, with flat roofs and tall types of windows that let in a good amount of sun. They would be bad in Winter, but they looked pretty cool.
PRR underpass
When we got to the last houses close to this path, the chain link fence came all too close to the weeds. We had to climb over it.
Fortunately, it was not the kind that were cut of in the top. We were able to jump over using the middle bar like a step and continue along the fields.
We continued to the end of the fields, and then entered a section of woods. We headed down hill to where it seemed like there was a tributary, and then more houses.
Lattice overhang thingies
A pronounced path continued through to the west, but the new chain link fence line blocked where the obvious through route was. We walked the line of the fence looking for a reasonable way around. It was looking like we would have to climb it again, until we found a spot where we could just lift it up and crawl underneath.
On the other side, the woods were pretty nice, and good foot paths informally led all over between the lines of houses.
Old kiln area
This system weaved around and came out at the corner of the yard of the Whitemarsh Elementary School.
We headed out across the fields here to Joshua Road, where we turned to the left briefly. When we reached the William Jeanes Memorial Library, another trail led off o fthe south side of it’s lot between homes to the northwest. We followed this out to and across Hillside Road. From there, it led behind houses and intersected with another trail going left and right in McCarthy Park.
Old 1840s lime kiln
There were quite a lot of people walking this section. We turned right on this system, which took us up around one end of a retention pond, and then close to some homes.
Nice Sycamore
We skirted some ball fields, some with practices of some sort going on, and came out to Colonia Drive. We cut a corner through grass, and then followed the main access road out to Flourtown Road again where we turned left.
Some of the houses were vacant across the street as I recall. It appears it was purchased by the nearby quarry. In the area of the quarry is where the railroad we started out on had passed through. It ran very closely parallel with the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Trenton Cutoff, which is still active today in this area.
Plymouth Meeting kiln
We continued on Flourtown, and there was a spot with a pull of and some concrete barricades on the right.
Cross County Trail
I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s where the old Reading line had crossed the road. There was a sort of newer building back in the wooded area to the left closer to it, which I had considered walking through, but we didn’t. There is a section of trail ahead that is marked on Google as Cross County Trail, so I figured we would get to that.
As we reached the underpass for former Pennsylvania Railroad, it got pretty narrow.
Above is Cross County Trail under development on our hike in 2008. Below is about the same scene as it appeared here on our 2019 hike.
Good stone walls stood tall on either side of the road, and we had to go beneath the bridge.
Old stone homestead in Plymouth Meeting
Once on the other side, we had plenty of room and went to the right side heading north.
The sidewalk on the right side of the road became a paved walkway a bit further up, so it looked more trail like. We got to the Butler Pike and went across to a pretty new CVS and stopped in for drinks and snacks.
We turned left from there and paralleled the Butler Pike through a strip mall, and then under an underpass that was shut off. For some reason Butler Pike does not go through right now, but we could walk it.
Cross County Trail
We continued down Butler Pike on the other side, and came to a very old lime kiln and historic marker in a fenced area. We had to check it out.
The sign said “Lime Kilns Operated in 1840 by Hiram Blee and Co”. The one kiln was in reasonable enough shape to recognize, but others there were completely collapsed. There was no way out of the enclosure other than going back the way we went in.
Cross County Trail
The history marker was faded, the plexi all warped, and the roof on the kiosk was falling apart.
We made the next right from the road into the Meeting House Business Center, a little commercial park thing with lots of lots and sprawled out buildings.
The area of Plymouth Meeting is known for it’s roots with the Quaker Friends Meeting House. It was a big area of commerce and gatherings early on, and by the early 1800s home to a forge where nails were made.
Cross County Trail
There were over twenty lime kilns that used to be in the stretch we were walking through, which was historically known as Cold Point. It was because of this that the railroad first opened here in 1836. It was known as the Plymouth Railroad, which probably started out horse or mule drawn. This was the section that was rebuilt and extended upon to create the Plymouth Branch.
We went down a slope from the upper part of the parking area on the grass, and passed a last building before descending to Germantown Pike.
Cross County Trail
I decided to have a beer, and it turns out I was drinking it in front of the PA Liquor Control Board building.
We crossed to a mini mart, because I wanted to see if they had my Arizona tea I like as I recall. We then crossed over Chemical Road to get on the completed Cross County Trail.
The first time I had come through here in 2008 it was still under construction. It was now a through route and easy walking.
Cross County Trail
This whole stretch pretty closely follows the old Plymouth Branch, though of course it must deviate a good amount here and there. We continued along it beneath an underpass into a mall or something on the right. The trail followed along Chemical Road for a while. It then came out in the wide open area. I warned everyone that if we wanted to stop for food along the way, we should probably do so soon. There were not a ton of options that I was aware of.
Cross County Trail
After passing under Rt 476, there was a Ruby Tuesdays on the right. This was our only option other than Applebees, which everyone made fun of about heart attacks and such, so we went to Ruby Tuesdays.
It wasn’t too bad. We had a nice little break at a table away from most everyone. When we were done we just hopped back across Chemical Road and continued on the trail. It turned to the right before Chemical Road went back under 476, and continued parallel.
Cross County Trail on old Reading line
I had never noticed that this route might be the old railroad before, or at least I didn’t remember it, but this time it was obvious that when we crossed the Plymouth Creek, this was a rehabilitated old railroad bridge.
We continued further, and the trail had to go up hill to get around new development. We passed under Ridge Pike and then had to go along Alan Wood Road. After development, we turned right again into an open area under power lines and such.
Cross County Trail
There was a ditch to the left which I guess was Plymouth Creek. I remember the first time I hiked it, long before I had a GPS, I thought that this would be the route of the Schuykill Canal. Everything is in better perspective now.
We finally did pass beneath Rt 476 again, and directly beneath we passed over Plymouth Creek again on a rather obvious old rail bridge. This was fascinating to me because the trail rarely seemed like a rail bed, only when such infrastructure was in place.
Cross County Trail
The trail continued on, and soon we came to the underpass beneath Elm Street followed by an old railroad overpass.
I believe both were either railroad overpasses, or the Elm Street bridge is built on the stone abutments of an earlier bridge. The bridge here was apparently a pretty new one, and I think it was an older one that was there last time I was at this point, but that one too was capped on the old stone abutments.
Cross County Trail
The second bridge was the former Pennsylvania Railroad’s Schuykill Branch. Today, the Schuykill River Trail follows this right of way. The Schuykill River Trail came off of the bridge to join with Cross County Trail at it’s terminus.
We continued ahead, down hill on Schuykill River Trail, and then to Stoddard Ave. When we reached the steps to the Fayette Street bridge, we climbed up and crossed the Schuykill.
I noticed in the distance that the old dam that used to span the river in the area had been completely removed.
Old abutments?
We got across, turned right along the Morgan Staley building, and then continued across on Ford Street. When we reached Cedar Avenue, we turned left briefly. This took us to a nice paved trail that parallels Matsonford Road. We continued below some apartments and such, and then it ended at Elizabeth Street. We turned to the right, then left on Apple Street to continue.
While walking, we talked about movies and such. There was a lot of talk of stuff Deniro and Hoffman have done, and then we chatted about superhero movies and where they are going, how they break canon, and how characters were portrayed.
Me
We got back to Ford Street and continued beneath Rt 476, and then continued to the left on Matsonford Road. These road walks didn’t go on too long, and when we passed under Schuykill Expressway, I turned quickly onto the vehicle on ramp, then turned right off of it into the weeds. We headed down hill real fast, and then cut further into the trees as we made our way down.
I wasn’t expecting this to be as complicated as it was, but it was. We continued through a lot of light vegetation on a slope along the ramp, and then had to climb over a fence again at the bottom to get through to the Calvary Cemetery, a rather huge cemetery on the south side of Matsonford Road. We probably could have gone in just following the road, but I suppose that wouldn’t have been as fun.
In the cemetery, there were coffins sat along the south side as if ready to be buried.
Schuykill Branch of the Pennsylvania RR is now Schuykill River Trail over this bridge.
It looked kind of weird. I suppose they were actually “vaults” the coffins go in. Still odd. The ground had been too frozen to bury any I’m sure too.
Cross County Trail on old Reading Plymouth Branch, Schuykill River Trail on old Pennsylvania RR above
We continued across the cemetery, then turned right at the end of it onto Old Gulph Road. I had wanted to go through cemetery lands on the opposite side, but with all of the ice and such it was just easier to continue down hill.
Old abutments?
We soon passed beneath a pretty high deck girder rail bridge. I assumed when we went under it, in this little settlement known as Conshohocken Station, that this was one of the old lines of the Pennsylvania Railroad or the Reading Railroad. They seemed to have everything there.
This was neither. I was surprised to find out that this was a sort of trolley route that is still in service today.
Incorporated n 1902, the Philadelphia and Western Railway was intended to be part of a high speed system of interconnected trans continental rail that was ill fated.
It never became more than a small regional operation. The line ran originally from Philadelphia to Strafford, and opened in 1907. The line we were passing under was the Norristown Branch of the line, which opened the end of 1912.
Power house today
It remains in service today as a SEPTA line between Norristown and Philadelphia, but the section between Villanova and Strafford, on the west of Wayne, saw it’s last train in 1956.
Some of the line saw regular freight train use until 1970, but it was disconnected from the rest of the national rail system after then, and could be operated like a trolley line solely.
The route out to Strafford was my planned route, but I didn’t know that relation until reading into it. We continued over to a mini mart for snacks and drinks on the other side of the underpass, and then crossed to follow Upper Gulph Road to the west. We continued to a left turn into Denbight Lane, which is a development loop. We turned right at the first intersection into the loop, and then soon to the left on a trail that passes through the pretty section in the middle of it. This trail continues the length of the middle loop, and exits through an archway on the southwest side. We turned left on the road at the end, and crossed the Gulph Creek. The road then continued west through an intersection parallel with Gulph Creek, and became Gulph Creek Road. A particularly pretty section.
We continued until we saw the boundary for Harford Park on the left. We cut through a line of trees on a small path and got onto the grass where a weaving road could be seen above heading further into the park. There were large examples of Copper Beeches growing on the hillside, a popular ornamental and favorite tree to America’s first Forester, Gifford Pinchot.
Sugartown Station; Bob Foley collection
As we headed up, there was an abandoned old farm house with boards over the windows to the left. We hit the road and continued to the right, and a beautiful old mansion came into view. This was the Harford Mansion House.
Sugartown Road today
The mansion was built in 1880 as a Summer home for Judge John Hare on the hill with it’s lovely views of the Radnor Valley, designed by Frank Furness and Allen Evans, the most prominent Philadelphia architects of the time. The house is considered to be among their best residential architecture. The township purchased the property in 1969, and in 1970 the mansion became home to the Main Line Night School. It has since been renamed the Creutzburg Center, for one of the night school’s founders. The park was renamed “Harford Park” when it was originally “Hare Park” for it’s owner. I’m not sure why this was done, but there must be some reason. I’m inclined to believe some yuppie thing. We headed past the lovely mansion, and I saw on Google where we could get out on a road on the other side. This was now blocked off by a large chain link fence. I’m not the first person to be miffed by this. As it turns out, the original access to the park was via Hare’s Lane, which is the driveway for several homes coming in from Radnor to the west. People attending the school used to be able to walk from the station right to the school by way of what was considered a public access. They did so for over twenty years, but then the developer put in new houses and closed it all off. The township settled out of court with them after a suit was filed and they closed it off. This hurt the residents and the school students, and now it was a pain for us...at first. We went around the fence to the left and came out in a corporate center. We were able to walk the edge of the parking lot to the west from here. This was being rather obviously used by some people, but the legality of passing through the corporate center is in question. They still have meetings they’re having about all of this, and there is one coming up soon I’ve seen posted. The municipality has a greenways plan that calls for a pedestrian connection to the park from the station vicinity, but it hasn’t happened yet. It seems they probably could have utilized the existing path because it has been used as one of the main access from 1969 until it was closed in 2014, and it’s almost like an Adverse Possession sort of thing, but money talks I suppose. Regardless, we got through, and headed over toward the local elementary school where a paved path went around the side. We followed this to a nice pedestrian bridge across into Radnor Memorial Park. There, a train was coming into the Radnor Station across the way. It was an old brick station along the elevated line. We had a look at it, and then turned to the right to pass beneath the active former Philadelphia and Western line on King of Prussia Road. Once on the other side, we turned right on a path to the access road to another corporate center. We simply walked through parking lots from here out to the Radnor Hotel and Rt 31/Lancaster Ave. We continued across on Radnor-Chester Road which had no good pedestrian lane at first, but then the Radnor Trail started along the right side after a development entrance. This trail continued a short distance and turned to the right onto the old Philadelphia and Western Railroad grade. We started following it west. We soon passed an old brick building off of the railbed to the left. This was an old substation I believe associated with the electrified line. There are historic photos of about the same area.
St. Davids Station
We continued walking along, and passed the sorts of former stations.
The line is abandoned to the east of where we got on it to the next station, but there used to be a Willowburn Station in between. It is being proposed that this trail extends further to the east using the line, passing the new station, and then continuing down to the Delaware River. It’ll probably happen, just take a long time.
The next station was the Radnor Station. That was about where we got on it. After that was the Ithan Station, which was where the old substation was to the left.
We crossed bridges over Conestoga Road and Church Road, and then reached Brooke Road, about where the Wayne-St. David Station used to be. It was originally just St. David Station, but changed names in 1928. I got a then and now of this location using some of the posted photos. There were still concrete pilings on the edges that supported the pedestrian bridge that used to go over the line there.
We crossed over Maplewood Road, where there also used to be a station; there were Wayne, and Strafford stations as well. At West Wayne Avenue, there also used to be a station, which I set up another pretty good then and now at.
West Wayne
We continued from there across South Devon Ave, and then we were entering the Strafford vicinity. The line used to hook up to the north there, and the railroad operated a bus service from there to West Chester. The connection by rail out that far never happened. The rails turned to the north and made connection with the Pennsylvania Railroad according to historic maps.
The rail right of way goes over Old Sugartown Road on a bridge, and then reaches the current road alignment just before the parking lot where we were parked. It came upon us pretty fast. Even I was surprised at how quickly we reached this point.
Strafford Station
Craig was able to get me back to my car, with only a little difficulty with my dying phone GPS.
Conrad told me over dinner that he was very curious as to how I was able to make connection from West Conshohocken to Wayne; I hope this journal gives a good enough explanation!
It was a great dinner, as always, and I was very ready for some more great exploring the next day.
HAM
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