The pension files for individual Philadelphia and Reading employees are incomplete and extremely fragmentary, while some are more extensive than others. Information included within most of the files comprises the employee’s pension application - which includes employment history - along with intercompany correspondence acknowledging an employee’s enrollment into the program, changes in employment, their death, and notifications of checks made to their beneficiaries.

This series also includes three registers of employees enrolled in the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Co.'s pension system, as well as a single record of workers who were members of the Philadelphia and Reading Relief Association following its organization in 1888.

The employee pension records includes one volume (13) which comprises more detailed employee information such as the pensioner's name, birth and death dates, occupation and employment location, pension number, number of years service, and the date in which the pension took effect. Volumes 14 and 15 only include a list of employee names categorized by occupation, which were largely used to keep track of an employee's age and start date. The record of members of the Relief Association only includes workers employed at the Reading car shops, and contains such information as the employee's occupation, their per month contribution to the fund, certificate number, age, pay rate, and employment dates.