JeffPo's Reading Railroad Lantern #3 Page
Last update: 11/04/09
This Dressel lantern was used by the Reading Company. The lantern is stamped with READING CO. LOCO DEPT. The red globe indicates that it was used as a stop signal.
An interesting feature of this lantern is the heavy metal base/ring on the bottom. As the LOCO DEPT stamp on the lid indicates, this lantern was specifically used by the locomotive crew, not the general brake crew. The locomotive of a train was a happening place, and it did a lot of jostling around. The heavy base of this lantern helped to stabilize it and kept it from tipping over.
Reading Railroad
Image take 1927. Philadelphia, PA.
The Reading Company (pronounced "Reding"), although mainly remembered as a railroad, was also a multifaceted industrial giant. Originally established as the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad in 1833 to transport anthracite coal, the pioneering 94-mile line evolved into a mighty corporation serving eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. Operations included coal mining, iron making, canal and sea-going transportation and shipbuilding. With its great complex of shops for locomotive and car building and repair, and constant advances in railroad technology, the company held a position of leadership in the railroad industry for over a century. The Philadelphia & Reading created the Reading Company to own on paper during the 1890s, trying to ward off the government's effort to break up monopolies. After World War II as America began to turn away from coal as its major fuel, the Reading's fate began to turn as well. The Reading entered bankruptcy in 1971 and its operations were taken over as part of the federally financed CONRAIL in1976.