During the late 1940’s the station was heavily altered by removing the second floor.  Since that date, the memory of what the original layout contained inside was lost to time.  After removing the floor boards, each board contained many holes which is a sign that the flooring has been reused from another location or that it had been pulled up multiple times for repairs.  The fact that the floor boards contained these “extra” holes was a curiosity but was not given more thought until the additional wall openings below the floor began to be investigated and repaired.  Could there be more below the surface?  The new design called for a small area to be dug out for a crawl space.  That small dig lead to an all-out effort to explore the existing structure, leading to the revelation of a complete basement… with a concrete floor!  The rubble that filled the area was from the removal of the second floor.  It appears that the floor boards were taken up, the rubble thrown down, and then the supporting piers built on top of the rubble before entombing the basement under the re-laid floor.

[foogallery id=”2301″]

Any old building is sure to have secrets and the station certainly did not disappoint.  The original floor was suspended by a series of beams pocketed directly into the stone walls.  These beams had been modified over the years and even doubled up in one section presumably to mitigate the effect of the rotting joists.  A beam centered under the floor also added support in this area and was anchored on either end by a brick and stone column.  This stage of the project revealed several small openings in the walls which would have been supported by heavy timbers originally.  The wood had since rotted away, leaving the stone in an unstable condition.  New concrete lintels were installed to provide modern support to the old walls.

The original floor plan layout of the station is unknown.  After many alterations, the existing interiors had been severely damaged by water infiltration.  The interior stud walls were most likely installed in the mid to late 1940’s and several areas of the exterior walls had been patched and re plastered.  Removal of the walls was essential to the restoration because it allowed for the next phase- removing the flooring system.

After close to 30 years of neglect and vacancy, the station building was in pretty rough shape all around.  The sloped roofing placed during the mid 1940’s renovations had begun to leak near an existing chimney located in the center of the space which ultimately lead to the partial collapse of the surrounding roof structure.  By removing the sagging and broken joists, the gravitational strain was taken from the stone support walls before further damage occurred.  Temporary roof joists as well as a standard tin roof were applied to stabilize the building until the new roof structure can be fabricated.  A big thank you to Green Valley Construction for their assistance in this phase!

Originally built in c.1860, the Avondale Railway Station was part of a flourishing railroad network which spread across the U.S. throughout the 19th century.  Avondale was home to two separate rail lines, the Pomeroy and Newark (which later became part of the Pennsylvania RR) and the Philadelphia & Baltimore Central Railroad.  The stone building that remains on the property today serviced as both a passenger and freight building.

While the exact history of the structure is rather unclear, a series of modifications over the years led it to go from a two story building with adjoining support structures to a one story structure with a different roof line.  The second story was removed in the mid 1940’s during a refurbishment of the building as well as the removal of the overhangs and support brackets.  A door way and several windows along the front facade were also removed at this time.