1972 Reading Company Freight Schedule

By 1972, the Reading was in bankruptcy, and the Penn Central merger had dramatically altered freight operations through loss of a significant portion of the road's interchange traffic.  Nevertheless, the Reading soldiered on, continuing to strive to serve its customers and work with "friendly" roads like the Western Maryland and the B&O, who had a significant amount of trackage rights over the Reading, which by this time was somewhat of a ward of the Chessie System.

The information presented here is transcribed directly from the official Reading Company freight schedule effective September, 1972. This may be useful as a guide to planning freight operations on your layout to decide which trains are most appropriate to model. The online edition of the 1954 Reading Company Freight Shippers Guide can help you determine an appropriate mix of freight traffic by providing information about the specific industries served at the destinations listed in the schedule.

The freight train symbols listed below generally indicate the abbreviation of the origin and destination of each train, or the initial and final terminal. The numbers following the symbol letters indicate the departure time of the train, expressed in military time (24-hour clock) to the nearest hour. For example, train NH-17 would be Newberry Junction to Harrisburg (Rutherford Yard), departing at 1700 (5:00 pm).

Here is a key to the symbols for the origin and destination terminals, though some letters may have multiple designations (e.g., "E" for "Erie-Lackawanna," i.e. Rupert):

A consolidated system map showing principal connections and terminals on the Reading system can be found here. The image will open in a new window.

Click on a a train symbol in the table below to bring up details regarding that train's schedule, classification and connections. When viewing a schedule, the connecting train information is also linked; selecting those links will open the connecting train's schedule. Clicking on one of the LOCAL links at the bottom of the table will bring up a schedule for local freight service on either the Philadelphia or Reading Division.