30th Street won’t be the same without Solari

In an article in the March 2011 issue of Trains, I made a claim that ruffled some feathers, namely that Philadelphia’s 30th Street is America’s finest railroad station. The story engendered a few howls, mostly from devotees of Grand Central Terminal and Los Angeles Union Station.

I thought I was pretty careful in my criteria: the best station has to be busy; it has to be downtown; it has to offer both commuter and intercity service; it has to have classic architecture on a grand scale, in virtually as-built condition; and it has to have some special attractions that make the place unique. 

Philly’s 30th Street has all that, especially those “extras.” I always pause beneath the magnificent 28-foot-high Pennsylvania Railroad war dead memorial, sculptor Walter Hancock’s “Angel of the Resurrection,” at the east end of the concourse. Likewise Karl Bitter’s huge “Spirit of Transportation” bas-relief in the old waiting room, moved there from old Broad Street Station. Most of all, I’ve loved the Solari arrivals-and-departures board, for more than 40 years the pulse of 30th Street. 

Alas, now comes news that last Saturday crews finished taking the Solari board out of service. No longer will its symphony of chattering clicks grab the attention of passengers gathered around the station’s central information booth. It is being replaced by — you guessed it — a digital display. 

For decades, Solaris were a fixture in several stations along the Northeast Corridor. 30th Street’s is a captivating machine, an electro-mechanical marvel that constantly updates trains, train numbers, origins, destinations, and times and track locations across seven rows of rotating alpha-numeric split flaps. Miraculously it seems, instructions from an off-stage PC bring the blurring flaps to a sudden stop. There, in perfect order, the board will tell you that Amtrak train 80, the Carolinian, has just arrived from Charlotte at Stairway 4.

Watching the Solari can be hypnotic, and I fell under its spell countless times. Decades ago, it happened whenever I was waiting for the westbound Broadway Limited. Somehow, watching the Solari was extra special when you knew a Budd roomette was awaiting you down on the platform. Other times I was simply catching the next Northeast Regional for New York or Washington. When I could afford it, I’d take the Acela Express. 

One of the things I like about 30th Street is how much the place symbolizes the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad, especially with all its Tuscan red and gold flourishes, visible in the dramatic 95-foot-high coffered ceiling and elsewhere in the building. The PRR built the neoclassical station in 1933 and hired the great Daniel Burnham’s old firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst & White to design it.

Difficult as it is to believe, however, Amtrak has now occupied the building longer than the old PRR. In fact, the Solari itself is a post-PRR phenomenon; the Italian company Solari di Udine installed it in the mid-1970s, replacing a huge chalkboard. 

Rumors of the Solari’s demise go back several years as technicians struggled to keep up with the increasingly cantankerous old machine. Recently, local Philadelphia politicians made noise about convincing Amtrak to keep it. A petition to that effect garnered hundreds of signatures. Amtrak has said the board has to be replaced because its displays are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.  

I get all that, but I think it would be unreasonable to criticize Amtrak for replacing the Solari. Imagine the expense of keeping all those thousands of parts working in concert, especially with an obsolete technology for which spare parts are not available off the shelf. Still, its digital replacement will be a big letdown, a cold alternative to a warm technology.

The good news is that the 30th Street Solari board will be saved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg. The museum’s director, Patrick Morrison, says it’s too early to provide details of the board’s conveyance, but he confirms it will become part of the collection. I can’t imagine a better place for it, sharing space with some of the equipment — including GG1, E60, and AEM7 locomotives — that once rolled beneath it.  

For me, the biggest appeal of walking into 30th Street has been its aural delights: train announcements echoing beneath that lofty ceiling; the taps of thousands of pairs of feet making their way across the marble floor; the ceaseless rumble of trains heard deep below the concourse; the constant murmur of conversation. Alas, on my next visit, there will be something missing.