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The Reading segment of the Schuylkill River Trail, known locally as the Thun Trail, follows the Schuylkill River about 20 miles from Stonecliffe Park in Reading to Riverfront Park in Pottstown. It runs on the old Pennsylvania Railroad bed through Gibraltar, Birdsboro, and Douglassville, crossing the river on tall railroad bridges built in 1918. The Berks County miles are crushed stone; the last stretch into Pottstown is paved. One gap remains: about four miles between Gibraltar and Birdsboro follow roads with signs pointing the way. The Philadelphia segment continues downriver from Pottstown, and the Hamburg segment lies upriver beyond Reading.
Schuylkill River Trail: Reading
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Schuylkill River Trail: Reading has about 117 to 158 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, running, e-biking, birding, biking, and walking, with April, May, and October the best months.
Hourly comfort scores for the next 15 days of weather, tuned to your activity and your own thresholds.
Plan your visit to this trail. Get the best windows for a comfortable outing.
Enjoy the Schuylkill River Trail: Reading!
In half of past years, color along the Schuylkill River Trail: Reading peaks October 27 to November 6, typically around October 31. The trail has 40% deciduous coverage, with the majority being yellow-poplar, red maple, chestnut oak, northern red oak, black oak, and white oak.
The Schuylkill Navigation Company was chartered in 1815, and its canal began floating anthracite down the valley in 1825. The finished waterway ran 108 miles and used 92 lift locks to drop 588 feet. In 1859, its peak year, the canal moved 1.7 million tons of cargo. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad opened along the same river in 1841. Within four years it hauled three times the canal's anthracite. In 1870 the navigation company leased its waterway to the Reading for 999 years. After 1913 only an occasional boat passed. The Pennsylvania Railroad answered the Reading with its own line up the valley, the Pennsylvania Schuylkill Valley Railroad, which reached Reading in 1884. Conrail's formation in 1976 closed that branch north of Manayunk. Between 1947 and 1979 the state filled most of the old canal with the coal silt it dredged from the river. In 1974 a group of Reading-area citizens founded the Schuylkill River Greenway Association. They won scenic river designation in 1978 and began the Schuylkill River Trail in 1979 on the old towpaths and railroad beds. More than 80 miles of a planned 120 are open today. This segment is the Thun Trail, named for Ferdinand Thun, who founded the Textile Machine Works in Reading in 1892. It rides the Pennsylvania Railroad's Schuylkill Branch, which was laid along the canal route, over railroad bridges built in 1918 and past Morlatton Village at Douglassville.
Union Canal TrailAngelica Creek TrailSchuylkill River Trail: Philadelphia
