Train Rides in Reading & Berks County, Pennsylvania

A Berks weekend fits. Boyertown to Kempton is roughly 30 miles up US 100 and PA 143, about 45 minutes if the roads behave. Kempton to Hamburg drops another 10 miles west on PA 143 — 15 or 20 minutes coming down off Blue Mountain. Colebrookdale runs on weekends year-round; the Wanamaker Kempton & Southern operates Sundays May through November only, so pair them accordingly. Plan Colebrookdale for a Saturday, WK&S for Sunday morning, and stop through the Reading Railroad Heritage Museum in Hamburg on the drive back.

Berks County was Reading Company country. Both surviving heritage lines here trace back to the Philadelphia & Reading, and the Hamburg museum takes its name from the same road. Colebrookdale’s route, incorporated in 1865, opened on September 6, 1869 as a branch to move iron ore from the Manatawny to the Reading main; the Reading absorbed the parent Colebrookdale RR in December 1945, and Berks County bought the corridor back in 2009 to prevent abandonment. The Kempton railroad was chartered in 1870 as the Berks County Railroad, folded into the P&R as the Schuylkill and Lehigh line, and preserved by volunteers in 1963. That Reading thread is what ties the three operators together as one region.