Newtown Line

bikentransit wrote:Someone pointed out to me today that Newtown restoration is on PennDOT's radar (that's not to say it will happen, its just on the radar):

FWIW the docs on that site seem to be mostly from 2008-2009.

Unlike lot of other expansion/reactivation efforts, i personally believe that the newtown line would have a high rider number originating and terminating at newtown, with medium rider numbers in between, possibly growing over time as people get more used to it being there and more fed up with traffic.

The only thing i can really see impacting rider numbers is service frequency, ie will it be treated as a branch or a full line, will there be crappy weekend service that scares people away, or will there be heavy weekend service to reflect the probable travel patterns of the area? People around here like to go out to philly on evenings and weekends, as well as other areas like events at the sports complex.

Will the 130 bus be kept as-is, or gutted with local hopper bus to/from the college and shopping center only? I personally hope it will be kept intact, but this is SEPTA we're talking about.

Grade crossings will need gates, and fences installed to keep people out of the ROW especially towards the last 1/3 of the line with high population density and easy foot access.

How can we keep speeds on the line up and where can we put sidings to allow proper schedule?

The thing about Newtown is that unless it runs like the West Trenton Line (with its 10 minute peak headways) and the Warminster Line or BETTER, you aren't going to get the magical ridership everyone keeps dreaming of. Running it simply as an extension of the existing Fox Chase line with Fox Chase Line headways and service will make the line DOA on arrival, as more people will just hop in the car and drive to a station with more frequent service. We see this happening at Jenkintown-Wyncote where the service frequencies, especially off peak, are marvelous!

Woodbourne Station is a short drive away from Newtown. Yardley and Langhorne aren't too much further. Trevose and Warminster are nearby Southampton. It's not like these areas are completely devoid of transit service. Plus, a lot of Newtown area residents commute towards New York, and the Newtown Line won't help at all.

The Newtown Line also serves very residential areas with light density outside of Southampton and Newtown proper. Even the Newtown Station itself is on the edge of town, where the main residential development in town has been more to the north of town, like Newtown Grant. If the Newtown service were to return I'd imagine the 130 would still remain as it serves a lot of local ridership at St. Marys, the Community College, the Shopping Center, and some other areas along the line.

Good points. However, you're forgetting one thing.... to get to woodbourne or yardley, or langhorne, or levittown, you have to deal with what i like to call "double traffic", as in, it takes double the time to get there during rush hour. Newtown's station area, while not ideal, allows for a lot of parking capacity. And while there are indeed a lot of new york commuters here, there are also people that moved out of philly and still have a job there, like my neighbor who owns a shop down near university city station. He drives, but he also said he'd take SEPTA if the train an from newtown. There are also people who come here from other parts of the SEPTA system.

By itself i think the line would do OK, but i think a bus route here and a re-route there might help it a lot. The 130 is all ready going past the proposed location without any re-route, and the train would give people who would otherwise be relying on the sketchy bus connections and schedules another option. Doylestown has a shuttle, maybe we should get one too?

Tritransit Area wrote:The thing about Newtown is that unless it runs like the West Trenton Line (with its 10 minute peak headways)

What are the times for the 10 minute headways of which you speak? I took a quick look at the schedule and I don't see them.

Patrick Boylan wrote:

Tritransit Area wrote:The thing about Newtown is that unless it runs like the West Trenton Line (with its 10 minute peak headways)

What are the times for the 10 minute headways of which you speak? I took a quick look at the schedule and I don't see them.

Tritransit Area might have exaggerated slightly, but the headway between some rush hour trains is very good. For instance, morning trains presently leave West Trenton for Center City at 6:31, 6:42, 6:54, and 7:03. They're further spaced out before and after those times, but still only 20-25 minutes apart for the rest of the peak hours.

Tritransit Area exaggerating plus me glancing only quickly and not counting 6 departures each hour. Thanks for giving the times for us.

It'd require sidings, and a proper, good, working signal system. When I get home later I'll poke at some maps, because we also need a 3-4 track terminal. Since the wye, and the service/storage shed is no longer an option, we'll need platformed yard tracks, high level, maybe U shaped, with 1 train on either side at platform, and 1-2 in middle storage only?

IP EMU technology would be the best option:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... 8465,d.cWc

And for Quakertown, Reading and resumption of Crusader service to NYC.

25Hz wrote:Good points. However, you're forgetting one thing.... to get to woodbourne or yardley, or langhorne, or levittown, you have to deal with what i like to call "double traffic", as in, it takes double the time to get there during rush hour. Newtown's station area, while not ideal, allows for a lot of parking capacity. And while there are indeed a lot of new york commuters here, there are also people that moved out of philly and still have a job there, like my neighbor who owns a shop down near university city station. He drives, but he also said he'd take SEPTA if the train an from newtown. There are also people who come here from other parts of the SEPTA system.

By itself i think the line would do OK, but i think a bus route here and a re-route there might help it a lot. The 130 is all ready going past the proposed location without any re-route, and the train would give people who would otherwise be relying on the sketchy bus connections and schedules another option. Doylestown has a shuttle, maybe we should get one too?

Oh yes, I forgot about the extraordinary traffic back-ups. There was a study for a Newtown shuttle service done WAAAAAY back in the day, maybe the early 2000s. The 130 used to have limited service to Newtown Grant several years ago as well, perhaps as a result of this study. The Doylestown shuttle, unfortunately, has very little to do with the train service and primarily serves as a shuttle to take seniors to the grocery store.

The point still stands, though, that without a healthy boost in service, I don't think the ridership will be realized. You already have people driving to Jenkintown and Glenside for the more frequent train options, bypassing their local station.

I have an idea that I don't think has been discussed, but I think it could be a new way of thinking about the line.

What about extending the present line to Fox Chase up to the Trenton cut-off and then extending service along the cut-off to Trenton NJ? This way, commuters could get to trains that go to New York, which is more likely where they would like to go by train.

If this is successful, service could be extended from Newtown down to the cutoff and over to both Trenton and to Philadelphia. Electrification would be preferable, but not entirely necessary.

FRN9 wrote:If this is successful, service could be extended from Newtown down to the cutoff and over to both Trenton and to Philadelphia. Electrification would be preferable, but not entirely necessary.

This had been suggested, and I think even studied, at some point in the past. They wanted to end it where the Trenton Cut-off crosses the Warminster Line north of Willow Grove. People just don't want to transfer to get from Newtown to Center City when the (theoretical) option of direct service exists.

tgolanos wrote:

FRN9 wrote:If this is successful, service could be extended from Newtown down to the cutoff and over to both Trenton and to Philadelphia. Electrification would be preferable, but not entirely necessary.

This had been suggested, and I think even studied, at some point in the past. They wanted to end it where the Trenton Cut-off crosses the Warminster Line north of Willow Grove. People just don't want to transfer to get from Newtown to Center City when the (theoretical) option of direct service exists.

That sounds like an even better idea (the Warminster line). I prefer through trains to stubs.

If the transfers were really reliable, unlike now where a single deay can make you wait for the next train an hour or more, it might work, but i think for now the focus should be on repairing the line and prepping it for electrification, then if service is restored, even many years down the line, it would be a simpler task. The rail that does remain looks ok, but it'd all need to be ripped up, ties too, so maybe they could do that. All the crossings would need concrete panels put in and so on. All of the bridges, cuts, and embankments would need to be inspected and any repairs or replacements would need doing. We also need new stations, signs, all the backend trip planner stuff, advertising, and of course all the signal conduits and whatnot would need to be spec'd out and then at the end you fit it all together and see how far you can get it without trains needing to run. Once there's that last push for trains to run, the fight over scheduling and headways and all that takes place. by this time silverliner 6 may be in planning stages, so perhaps an expansion order would need to be done.

Sadly, the one and only thing we here can really do is use our vote to get this accomplished on election days. Petitions only go so far in such a divided political atmosphere.

I also wonder if they should look into the dual modes NJT and AMT bought for new service outside of the West Chester Branch.