The Orange Car of Reading: A Citrus Landmark at Front & Court

In the late 1930s, a little tin shack tucked by the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks at Front & Court Streets became one of Reading’s most beloved seasonal landmarks: the Orange Car. It was introduced to Reading by the Austin family—Florida citrus growers who, hit by volatile auction markets and a devastating cold snap, came north to sell fruit directly to customers. The arrangement began in Harrisburg and, after unexpected success, expanded to Reading the following season. By December 1938, the Reading Orange Car was already in its fifth season. What set the Orange Car apart was a mix of straight-from-the-grove freshness, rail-adjacent convenience, and Southern hospitality. The operation was personable—customers were greeted with smiles and a drawl, with the standing promise: “If you find any bad ones in there, bring ’em back. We’ll replace them.” The shop’s location beside the tracks made pickups easy for working people and even railroad crews, who would hop down from locomotives to buy fruit.

The Austin family story tied Reading to Lake County, Florida. Patriarch W. F. Austin, Sr. and his children (including Elmer and Bill, Jr.) owned multiple groves and cycled north each winter to run retail “orange cars” in Harrisburg, Allentown, and Reading, then returned south in late spring to work the groves. In the 1938–39 season, the Reading stand’s sales were striking: 26 freight-car loads—about one-quarter of all the fruit sold in the city—a scale made possible by insulated railcars designed to resist freezing. The Orange Car also became a local classroom for citrus varieties. Beyond navel and “pineapple” oranges, customers sampled grapefruit, tangerines, kumquats, and even satsumas—a tangerine–orange cross that peeled like a tangerine and ate like a sweet orange.

The classic address was Front & Court Streets, alongside the railroad—“between the tracks” on Penn Central land (later Penn Central’s successor entities). As early as 1935, the Orange Car occupied the former office of J. W. Holmes & Co., Flour, Feed & Coal, repurposing a familiar rail-side footprint for citrus retail. The season typically ran from late November through mid-May. Once spring arrived, the Austins headed home to prepare the next crop. For decades it was fundamentally a drive-in business—by the 1970s, an estimated 95% of sales were to motorists rolling up for bags and boxes of fruit.

As time passed, the cast changed but the formula endured. In 1956, William F. Austin Sr., credited as the originator of the Orange Cars in Harrisburg, Reading, and Allentown, died of a heart attack on December 14 after roughly two decades split between Florida and Pennsylvania. In 1970, operators Alton and Martha Epp—then running the Front & Court stand—closed a month early after frost and cold ruined late-season fruit quality. In 1973, the Reading Redevelopment Authority signaled the Orange Car might be razed; the Epps, who also ran an Allentown stand, contemplated retirement rather than relocation. A year later came a reprieve: the Orange Car “stays.” Penn Central did not plan to dispose of the property, and the Epps, who had erected the building and leased the land from the railroad, expected to resume operations the next season. The winter of 1977 brought a notorious citrus freeze and embargo; during that period, Thomas Sanders—then owner—went to Florida to assess damage while Edward Apt ran the Reading stand on dwindling stock. A truckload had arrived just before the embargo, buying a week of sales. The Orange Car group then included locations in Allentown and Paterson, N.J., with its own Florida groves.

The Orange Car in 2007 near the foot of Court Street, on the site that is now part of Reading Area Community College.

By the mid-1990s, Reading Area Community College (RACC) targeted the former Orange Car property—between River Road and the Schuylkill River—for parking to offset campus landscaping that would remove central spaces. Plans in March 1996 projected roughly 190 spaces at the “Orange Car lot,” replacing spaces lost in the campus core and reducing reliance on leased parking. In 2007, Reading Area Community College and W. T. Sanders, the property owner, executed a Termination and Release covering roughly 1,570 square feet at Riverfront Drive and Washington Street. The Orange Car was already closed; the document simply resolved the real estate and fixtures: Sanders relinquished any claim to the buildings and equipment, and the College was released from further obligations and free to demolish or dispose of what remained.

Orange Car lot at Front and Court, 2008

Orange Car lot at Front and Court, 2025

For generations, the Orange Car fused Florida agriculture with Reading’s rail-town rhythms. It offered a reliable winter pipeline of fresh citrus, introduced locals to new varieties (from satsumas to kumquats), and embodied a face-to-face, “we’ll make it right” ethos. Its drive-in convenience anticipated later car-centric retail patterns, while its location by the tracks leveraged the logistics that once powered Reading’s economy. Even as operators changed—from the Austins to the Epps to Sanders—the Orange Car remained part produce stand, part social stop, and part seasonal ritual.