The Philadelphia Reading Railroad took over the Philadelphia Atlantic City line in 1883 and first standardized the narrow gauge line, completing that work on October 5, 1884. Passenger and freight service continued to grow, making the Philadelphia and Atlantic City line very profitable. The Philadelphia and Reading then incorporated and merged with five other railroad lines and became known as the Atlantic City Railroad. In the spring of 1890, a second track was laid and completed with a small siding so trains could back off the main track and allow express trains to run through. At that time, a closed station with a ticket office was believed to stand on the northwest side of the tracks, and crossing gates and typical X crossing signs were installed. Sometime between January and March of 1896, a telegraph block system, sometimes called Manuel Block Lines, was installed in Magnolia, making it much faster for the station master to send and receive messages to and from other stations so he could manually switch slower trains onto a siding to protect the movement of express trains. This system was later upgraded with the automated Hall Block System at Magnolia station, and its large round wooden signals, nicknamed Banjo Lights, were installed on both the northwest and southwest sides of Evesham Avenue. During the day, a reversible white and red center in the lower sign served as the warning when turned to red, and at night a red lantern was hung in the top signal when a warning came down the line and a train was switched to a siding. Trolley tracks were laid in 1907, and trolleys began taking some of the local passenger business. At that time Magnolia Station had four parallel sets of tracks, two trolley and two railroad. East Atlantic Avenue was not yet paved, but Evesham Road was. Rail freight and passenger business continued to steadily increase for the next several years. All rail companies were then taken over and operated by the Federal Government as essential to the World War One effort under the U.S. Railroad Administration from December 28, 1917 to February 29, 1920.