Editing Reading Terminal (section)

== Headhouse ==

Francis Kimball's headhouse presents an elaborate Italianate facade to Market Street, its red brick and terra cotta ornament creating visual richness appropriate to a major transportation gateway. The building's vertical emphasis—towers, gables, and varied rooflines—announces the station's presence and civic importance. The design draws from Italian Renaissance precedents filtered through Victorian interpretation, with ornamental detail that expresses the railroad's prosperity and Philadelphia's significance as a rail hub. The headhouse contained waiting rooms, ticket offices, and the administrative functions that railroad operation required.<ref name="webster">{{cite book |last=Webster |first=Richard |title=Philadelphia Preserved: Catalog of the Historic American Buildings Survey |year=1976 |publisher=Temple University Press |location=Philadelphia}}</ref>

The headhouse originally connected directly to the train shed, with passengers moving from street-level facilities up to elevated platforms where trains arrived and departed. This arrangement, common to major stations of the era, separated pedestrian and rail traffic while creating a processional experience from city street to railroad platform. The headhouse's ornate public spaces expressed the railroad's role as gateway to travel and commerce, making departure an occasion of architectural as well as practical significance.<ref name="gallery"/>