I uploaded a photo on Railpics and did a little history check on Amtrak's second busiest station (25,000 passengers per day) to create an insightful caption. I was rather surprised to read about several novel features originally built into the station.

Here's the detailed link from to the University City Historical Society's site:
http://www.uchs.net/HistoricDistricts/30thstreet.html

Here's an interesting view of 30th Street, November 25th at 10 PM.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=166702

In short, the station incorporated several features which were novel to station design at the time, including a chapel, a mortuary, and 3,300 square feet of hospital space. The reinforced concrete roof of the concourse section was designed to allow a landing space for small aircraft.
All those features are no longer available or used.

Amazing huh?

Does anyone know if in fact an airplane ever did land on top of the station??

Although it is a big station, I doubt the roof is really long enough to land any fixed wing aircraft (non helicopter) on it. Unless of course it was equipped with arresting gear similar to an aircraft carrier! They probably used that example just to explain how well built it was.

Later!
Mr. Ed

Folks,

i was one of those thousands who boarded a train there last year; it had been some years (like twenty) since I had last used the station.

I was plesently surprised to see how clean an lively it was. Not the expected collection of street people lying around and the trains were announced with a speaker system that you could actually understand!

Ted Miles

I noticed on 3 seperate sites that it was infact designed not only to support a "small" airplane but that the space was intentionally made available for use as a landing site. This is stated on the linked site, also. Recall, helicopters were not even around when the station was finished in 1934.

...The reinforced concrete roof of the concourse section was designed to allow a landing space for small aircraft.... from the University City Historical Society.

....when completed, the railway station contained a landing deck for small aircraft on its roof. The building is 637ft long and 327ft wide..... from aviewoncities.com.

It does seem unlikely despite the references.
Here is a great arial view posted by Philip Banks -
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=108764

/Mitch

A little known fact is that the "spike" on the Empire State Building was a mooring mast for airships. It was added in order to make Empire State taller than the Chrysler building also under construction; it was compared to a "hitching post on the street corner". Only one attempt was made to dock on it; it was by a Navy blimp, and it ended up standing on it's nose before the docking was aborted. A TV antenna has since been built on top.

I have a feeling this one is in the same venue: it could be done, but it wasn't a practical feature and may never had been used.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steam Project

The autogyro was flying during and before the station was built. It would have been capable of landing on the roof of the station. Eastern Airlines started airmail service in 1935 using an autogyro from the roof of the post office building (next to 30th street) to Camden NJ post office. Pitcairn
built and few these birds around the Philadelphia area. Pitcairn licensed the Kellett Autogyro Corp to build autogyros for the Army in 1935. They few for the army but the results were not outstanding.
Don Grant

I'd buy that, though I wonder if ever a similar attempt was ever made at 30th Street Station?

Great pic of the building with the new parking garage and office building. I never realized how big the building is. Still would be difficult to land an airplane with all of those air condtioners in the way LOL!

Later!
Mr. Ed

Thanks Mr. Ed,

The new parking garage and office building (Cira Center) are actually just behind the building that is on the right side of the photo - can't miss, at least from another vantage point, as it is all lit up in multi colored lights at night.