NO WAY can a train serve Phila using PHN (aka North Philadelphia Station). It is in a horrible neighborhood and you feel like you are in an "after the bomb" movie standing on the platform watching the commuter trains wiz by (most don't stop at PHN). I've been there within the last year and I know whereof I speak. That's what happens if you sleep past 30th St on the Keystone in the morning.
The
Broadway Limited's service of Philadelphia was somewhat incidental. The
Broadway Limited was the Pennsy's competitor to New York Central's more famous
Twentieth Century Limited. As such, its speed New York to Chicago was more important than its comfortable service of Philly. If I recall correctly, the
Twentieth Century Limited left Grand Central Terminal, stopped at Croton-Harmon to switch to steam or diesel power and did not make another passenger stop until Englewood just outside of Chicago.
The
Broadway Limited, which was trying to match it, had a faster route and thus could afford (and conversely, could not afford not) to make passenger stops at Newark, North Philadelphia, Paoli, Harrisburg (engine change), Fort Wayne, Englewood, and Chicago. If it had stopped at Philadelphia, with its convoluted track arrangement, the train would have had to move backward NYP-PHL (you can't turn the consist to get onto the Broadway from Philly), and it could not have possibly made the the 15.5 hour carded time the train achieved at its peak. Bypassing 30th street via Zoo interlocking made all of that non-issues.
There were a dozen other trains that handled Philly passengers, some of them quite fast such as the
Liberty Limited. Under current circumstances, of course, the train has no observation car, does not need to hit a 15.5 hour time, and only needs to compete with the Lake Shore Limited's 19 hour carding. It can and definitely will serve Philadelphia directly.
And by the way, the Broadway is coming back. Pennsylvania is interested in a second Pittsburgh train, passengers exist for daytime service through Cleveland and such (this will allow the timing of one of the NY-Chicago trains to service it in the daytime), and enough sleeper passengers do the Pittsburgh transfer to justify sleeper service.
From what I understand, it will offset the Pennsy by about 6 hours, and it will run slightly more express. From what I understand, it will take over the LSL's departure time, NYP-NWK-TRE-PHL-PAO-HAR-ALT-PGH-ALC-CLE-TOL-ELK-SOB-CHI. It should be able to leave by about 4:15 and hit Chicago by 9:00.
The LSL will move up to a 8:30 departure, allowing it to hit Albany by 10:00. It will serve most of upstate NY overnight (which is fine, it can use the later departure- it gets plenty of daytime service, and producing a comfortable night train for Buffalo at around 6AM). It will then serve Cleveland and west in daylight hours arriving in Chicago at about 4 in the afternoon.