Allen Lane station is a SEPTA Regional Rail station in Philadelphia. It is located at 200 West Allens Lane in the Mount Airy neighborhood and serves the Chestnut Hill West Line. The station building was built circa 1880, according to the Philadelphia Architects and Buildings project. Like many in Philadelphia, it retains much of its Victorian/Edwardian appearance. The High Point Cafe is in the station building.The station is in zone 2 on the Chestnut Hill West Line, on former Pennsylvania Railroad tracks, and is 10.1 track miles from Suburban Station. In fiscal 2012, this station saw 307 boardings on an average weekday.The name: "Allen" vs "Allen’s" vs "Allens"Allen Lane station got its name from the adjoining street, Allens Lane, which was named for William Allen, a prominent man of colonial-era Pennsylvania. His estate, Mount Airy (from which the surrounding Mount Airy neighborhood got its name), was at the top of the hill where Allens Lane meets Germantown Avenue. (The site is now the campus of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia). Since at least the 19th century, there has been variation in the lane's name between "Allen", "Allen’s", and "Allens". Today, through maps and signage, the names have reached a level of written codification that leaves the lane's name written consistently as "Allens" and the station's name written consistently as "Allen". Colloquially, the Allen/Allen’s/Allens variation persists in local speech, such as when train conductors sometimes announce the stop with the genitive inflection. The non-genitive variation that became the codified station name may have been reinforced by a timetable printer's error—the Pennsylvania Railroad's timetables were printed by the firm of Allen, Lane & Scott.
