The Crusader was a 5 car stainless steel streamlined express train that ran on a 90.3-mile (145.3 km) route from Philadelphia's Reading Terminal to Jersey City's Communipaw Terminal, with a ferry connection to Lower Manhattan at Liberty Street. The Reading Railroad provided this service in partnership with the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ), in which it was the majority owner of capital stock. Trains including the Crusader ran on Reading Railroad tracks from Reading Terminal in Philadelphia to Bound Brook, NJ, where they continued on CNJ tracks to Communipaw Terminal in Jersey City. Passengers then left the train and walked aboard the ferry or boarded busses that loaded onto the ferry. Introduced in 1937, the Crusader service declined during the 1960s, and the name was ultimately dropped in 1981.
The 1937-built Crusader trainset
The train's first schedule and the contest to name it.
The Crusader at Reading Terminal in 1968, shortly before the train began operating with Rail Diesel Cars
The Crusader observation car at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania
The Reading Terminal is a complex of buildings that includes the former Reading Company main station located in the Market East section of Center City in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It comprises the Reading Terminal Headhouse, Trainshed, and Market.
Reading Terminal
New Terminal Depot at Philadelphia, Reading Railroad System lithograph, circa 1891
A Reading commuter train departs Reading Terminal, September 1964
Reading Terminal Market sign
