Folcroft
Sharon Hill is a SEPTA Station on the Newark/Wilmington Line. The Sharon Hill terminus of the Suburban Trolley Line Route 102 (being renamed D2) is located a half-mile north of this SEPTA Regional Rail Station with no direct connection.
The Regional Rail Station consists of two low-level side platforms for the four track Northeast Corridor. These platforms begin just south of the bridge of Sharon Avenue across the depressed in a slight open cut line and run south. The platforms are relatively long with five car trains able to stop on the Delaware-bound platform, and four car trains on the Philadelphia-bound platform. Sharon Avenue provides the pedestrian connection between both platforms but access is includes ramps. It seems that with a high-level platform the station would be step free, although the grades of the step-free connections to and from the bridge to each platform might be too steep for ADA compliance.
The Philadelphia-bound platform contains a single brick with a flat concrete roof platform shelter that's painted green. A single green bench is inside the middle of this shelter. For access from Sharon Avenue, a fairly steep sidewalk leads up from the middle of the platform. This connects to a staircase up from the northern end of the platform. These are briefly combined before another few steps and a ramp leading south towards Elmwood Avenue, lead out to Sharon Avenue. There is a secondary decaying sidewalk that leads off the platform near its southern end to the dead end of the southern section of Clifton Avenue, cut into two sections by the Railroad Line.
The Delaware-bound side of the station is more notable. It contains a small, 36 space parking lot, exclusively accessed (and at the same level as) Sharon Avenue. At the edge of the parking lot, just below Sharon Avenue as its curves downhill off its overpass below is the station's very historic yet abandoned historic station building. It is as single stone structure with a decaying attached porch facing the grassy knoll down to the train platform below. It is surrounded by security fencing with signs on it saying the historic train station is being restored by the Sharon Hill Historical Society in cooperation with the Delaware County Planning Department, Amtrak and Septa (not all caps).
To access the Delaware-bound platform itself a short staircase leads down from the edge of the Sharon Hill overpass and to the front porch of the historic Station building. From here a staircase leads directly down to the northern end of the platform. From the southern end of the depot a steep pathway with a handrail leads down to the middle of the platform. It arrives at the platform at the same location as a slightly less steep sidewalk that leads to the dead end of Clifton Avenue.
Photos 1-35: October 23, 2013;
