Construction of MFL between Girard & 2nd St in '70s

once again NitPickMan comes to the rescue. That's Belgian block. If you want to see cobblestones look at Dock St between Walnut and 3rd.

gardendance wrote:once again NitPickMan comes to the rescue. That's Belgian block. If you want to see cobblestones look at Dock St between Walnut and 3rd.

Well here is a 1951 shot of those blocks being installed on Front just south of Fairmount.

Here is a follow up to the above photo, the demolition of the Fairmount EL station, looking north.

Not sure what happened to the scans of photos that I previously posted?? Roman.

Bump, still no answer??

It probably had to do with this weekends server changes. Re-upload it.

TWTRTECH, could you please re-upload the pics? Thanks

trainspotter71 wrote:TWTRTECH, could you please re-upload the pics? Thanks

Ill try again, and see if they stay up.

also these,

Nice shots! I had always wondered what the area looked like during that transition period. My first trip ever on the El east of 5th Street was shortly after the new alignment opened. There was still a open hole in the ceiling of the tunnel at 2nd Street with construction all over the place (the area at the east end of the station where there are no center support columns) and the station itself was still going through reconstruction. I was only 6 years old, but I remember that hole like it was today, lol!

Silverliner II wrote:Nice shots! I had always wondered what the area looked like during that transition period. My first trip ever on the El east of 5th Street was shortly after the new alignment opened. There was still a open hole in the ceiling of the tunnel at 2nd Street with construction all over the place (the area at the east end of the station where there are no center support columns) and the station itself was still going through reconstruction. I was only 6 years old, but I remember that hole like it was today, lol!

Silverliner, you probably mean this work being done at Front and Market sts.

Yep, that would be it!!!

A good friend of mine who retired from Septa a few years back , Bob Hughes, relayed a story to me about the segment of elevated over Front Street that sat abandoned for a bit after the new alignment in the middle of 95 opened . During that time frame Septa was doing a slight rehab of the Frankford El, such as expansion joints, painting etc etc , and they knew that one day the EL would need to be replaced or rebuilt, so Septa decided to do a test on the abandoned segment by dropping metal slabs from above the structure into the track bed to test for stress and or collapse. Apparently they dropped so many slabs into the trackbed that they started spilling over into Front Street with no signs of immenent collapse or stress.As we all know, the Frankford El was never built to great standards as the Market Street end, and the reason for the rebuild was the center girder that was encased in concrete. The way I undertsand it is that the center girder was the bane of the Frankford El's existence

There is a reference to the "new" tunnel and the "old" one. What is left of the old one today?

scotty269 wrote:There is a reference to the "new" tunnel and the "old" one. What is left of the old one today?

I think part of the east end of the westbound platform of 2nd Street station is where the tracks curved into the old tunnel, judging from those pics above.....