Driving me nuts on the R3 Elwyn Line

I work near Morton Station and for the third straight work day both in the morning and afternoon, I hear the roar, horn blowing and feel the passing rumble of fast moving diesels by my office. Everytime I run to the window I have missed it...about 1:45pm today I caught the very end "motion" of whatever it was heading inbound.........This is driving me nuts!!! Any idea what it is? Doesn't sound like the SW's or RL's.........

You are hearing the wire train coming back from wawa. The wire train is in the process of taking the wire down from Wawa to Glen Mills. I work on the Septa RRD as an engineer and it passed me 1 day on the West Chester branch( The Official designation in our timetable) and I asked engineer on the radio where he was going and he told me about taking the wire down between those 2 points because theres reports of vandals stealing the wire. If I hear anything else I will be sure to let you know.

Let me get this right: Septa's spending money to take down wire to prevent it from being taken down for free?

Shouldn't they be putting wire up or have they totally abandoned the training area at Lenni?

i thought this line was due to be reopened (at least to wawa)

why take the wire down?

nittany4 wrote:i thought this line was due to be reopened (at least to wawa)

why take the wire down?

The catenary wire needed to be replaced anyway for the rebuild. Its really really old.

As I stated the wire was being taken down between Wawa and Glen Mills and that is beyond the part of the line that Septa wants to re-extend service to. I dont want to see catenary taken down but unfortunately its out of mine and all of ours hands, unless of course loads of people start making a stink and demand service back to West Chester but Chester cy gave Septa money for Thorndale service and wont pay for both. Ahhh politics.

I guess SEPTA is preempting any other excuse for why there won't be any extension beyond Wawa of rail service by removing the catenary. I'd like to see the timetable for when, or should I say if, the catenary will be replaced. Only SEPTA, boy I tell ya! Everybody else seems to, at least, want to expand. SEPTA's philosophy is quite the contrary. Pitiful!!!!

BuddSilverliner269 wrote: I asked engineer on the radio where he was going and he told me about taking the wire down between those 2 points because theres reports of vandals stealing the wire. If I hear anything else I will be sure to let you know.

These vandals will obviously stop at nothing. Last week there were reports of vandals stealing LIVE signal wires along the Southern Tier in New York state and now this. Besides not wanting to lose any scrap value, Septa's probably trying to avoid a lawsuit from one of those idiots if they were to get hurt while stealing the railroad's property.

whovian wrote:I guess SEPTA is preempting any other excuse for why there won't be any extension beyond Wawa of rail service by removing the catenary. I'd like to see the timetable for when, or should I say if, the catenary will be replaced. Only SEPTA, boy I tell ya! Everybody else seems to, at least, want to expand. SEPTA's philosophy is quite the contrary. Pitiful!!!!

it's truly amazing how much mass transit infrastucture that septa lets go to waste...

-trackless routes in the northeast and south philadelphia with tied off wires
-the 23
-the 56
-the city subway
-the r3
-the manayunk viaduct
-proposed cross county metro
-pcc cars practically given away to museums
-abandoned row to newtown, doylestown, quakertown and reading
-a desperately needed boulevard subway that will never be built

am i missing anything?

if this were seattle, phoenix, st. louis, etc. where mass transit was viewed as an asset, these would all be in play

septa is an embarrasment

nittany4 wrote:

whovian wrote:I guess SEPTA is preempting any other excuse for why there won't be any extension beyond Wawa of rail service by removing the catenary. I'd like to see the timetable for when, or should I say if, the catenary will be replaced. Only SEPTA, boy I tell ya! Everybody else seems to, at least, want to expand. SEPTA's philosophy is quite the contrary. Pitiful!!!!

it's truly amazing how much mass transit infrastucture that septa lets go to waste...

-trackless routes in the northeast and south philadelphia with tied off wires
-the 23
-the 56
-the city subway
-the r3
-the manayunk viaduct
-proposed cross county metro
-pcc cars practically given away to museums
-abandoned row to newtown, doylestown, quakertown and reading
-a desperately needed boulevard subway that will never be built

am i missing anything?

if this were seattle, phoenix, st. louis, etc. where mass transit was viewed as an asset, these would all be in play

septa is an embarrasment

i wouldn't consider the boulevard to need a subway as bad as other parts of the city. the CCM ROW isn't SEPTA's yet. otherwise, amen. sell the stuff or use it, but don't let people build car washes where your station might be

our company just relocated to the far northeast

trust me, the boulevard is a nightmare, it's not the most dangerous road in north america for nothing

i'd guess 40-50% of the city's 1.5 million people live in the "northeast"
throw in the lower bucks suburbs and a rail shot from grant and the boulevard to city hall (via the BSL at eire?) would be SRO every morning

and somewhere on here i read (no idea of the credibility) that a proposed boulevard subway would have the highest ridership per mile projections of any transit start in the country that is on the drawing board...

START LAYING TIES!

nittany4 wrote:our company just relocated to the far northeast

trust me, the boulevard is a nightmare, it's not the most dangerous road in north america for nothing

i'd guess 40-50% of the city's 1.5 million people live in the "northeast"
throw in the lower bucks suburbs and a rail shot from grant and the boulevard to city hall (via the BSL at eire?) would be SRO every morning

and somewhere on here i read (no idea of the credibility) that a proposed boulevard subway would have the highest ridership per mile projections of any transit start in the country that is on the drawing board...

START LAYING TIES!

start a topic on this if you are interested in discussion about it.

are they going to reuse/recycle the wire the theives are stealing? is it live at all?

sorry dad

-There's a thread here somewhere on the Blvd Subway

-Is this wire train the same one that goes WB through the tunnel @930AM every day this past week? Or is this a different diesel?