NHSL more than 2 cars

Can trains on the NHSL run with more than 2 cars in a set? And how is fare collection handled in the second car?

jackintosh11 wrote:Can trains on the NHSL run with more than 2 cars in a set? And how is fare collection handled in the second car?

Once upon a time I was on a fantrip with 3 cars, subsequently read Ron Degraw's book The Red Arrow, in which he had a photo of a fantrip with 3 cars, caption "very rare since most platforms are only 2 cars long".
Hopefully that answers your question, yes they can, but it causes problems trying to load and unload passengers.
Currently fare collection's the same as Boston, Cleveland and San Francisco, and SEPTA Media-Sharon Hill multi car trains: a crew member sits in the trailing cars' operator's seat. San Francisco may have gone over to proof of payment, but I'm pretty sure Boston and Cleveland are the old fashioned way, and I know SEPTA still is.
Cleveland, by the way, in the PCC days ran 5 cars or so trains.

The N5s can? How many cars can they get to? And how many trolleys can link together? I heard 4, but I'm not sure. I guess if you wanted to do a 3 car train you could use the smaller door to fit it on.

And how common are 2 car trains? I know that during the US open there wasn't a single car train to be found (I suggested that to my family instead of the Paoli/Thorndale line, everyone else is a golf nut in my family. I actually tricked them that there wasn't parking at any of the NHSL stations and I also got to ride the El. The golf wasn't great, but my dad was a marshal in the tournament and got my phone in )

jackintosh11 wrote:The N5s can? How many cars can they get to? And how many trolleys can link together? I heard 4, but I'm not sure. I guess if you wanted to do a 3 car train you could use the smaller door to fit it on.

Sorry if I'm misleading you, I didn't mean to. I don't know what the limits of the new equipment are. The fantrip and photo caption to which I referred were Bullet cars, pre 1980. I would consider it a mark against them if the newer equipment could not do something the older equipment could, such as run in more than 3 car trains.

jackintosh11 wrote:And how common are 2 car trains? I know that during the US open there wasn't a single car train to be found (I suggested that to my family instead of the Paoli/Thorndale line, everyone else is a golf nut in my family. I actually tricked them that there wasn't parking at any of the NHSL stations and I also got to ride the El. The golf wasn't great, but my dad was a marshal in the tournament and got my phone in )

I also don't know how common, but I do know that there are some. I was recently surprised to see a 2 car train on a Saturday. There's a thread about it around here somewhere, the answer the more knowledgeable Septa forum members gave me was that it's to meet the last bus from Graterford prison. Outbound, which is the way I rode it, they did not use the second car. That's the way I remember peak period 2 car trains on the suburban division, they did not let passengers board the second car in the non-peak direction. I hope that they would if the load warranted it, instead of making folks stand in the front car, although I can see that it's unlikely, or at least was unlikely, that there was much reverse demand. Maybe it's different nowadays, I often hear, but don't know any statistics, that reverse peak demand has risen.

I think it has been standard MO during the last few snow storms to run all trains as locals and with 2 cars. I would guess this would be for extra capacity for snowbirds as well as extra braking capability on slippery rails.

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The photo is a little blurry but that's the first photo in a google search.

Why were the fare zones eliminated on the NHSL? They seemed to make sense. How were they enforced?

The Kawasaki cars according to an orientation guide I have for them from when they were delivered can operate in trains of up to 6 cars although I'm not sure how practical that would be

Could you imagine 6 K-cars street running together?

Quinn wrote:Could you imagine 6 K-cars street running together?

Sort of. There would be alot of really pissed off drivers along the trolley routes...

jackintosh11 wrote:Why were the fare zones eliminated on the NHSL? They seemed to make sense. How were they enforced?

The fare tariff for the NHSL has been modified as such that it operates as a "premium fare collection" service. The base fare to ride any portion of NHSL at any one time is now 50 cents more than the standard transit-mode base fare (ie. $2.25 + $0.50 = $2.75). For example, a ride from 69th Street to Bryn Mawr costs the same as going the complete length of the line from 69th Street to Norristown. Similar "premium fares" were set up as result of the most recent fare hike effective July 2013 on bus routes 123, 124, and 125.

jackintosh11 wrote:Why were the fare zones eliminated on the NHSL? They seemed to make sense. How were they enforced?

They were enforced by having the passengers boarding or alighting in the outer zone put extra money in the farebox if they were going to cross the zone boundary. It was mentioned in another thread that, in preparation for NPT, SEPTA has changed bus and NHSL routes to have single zones. On most bus routes, all passengers now pay the standard single-zone fare. Jefferson Lee mentioned the routes where all passengers now pay more than a single-zone fare.

More info to cover various questions:

> 2-car consists are the norm on many peak-hour runs. Correct, because there is no pass-through door each car has its own operator. The person in the second car only collects fares outbound; roles are swapped inbound. The lead car is usually the only one open for boarding until it fills, then the practice is to let any exiting passengers off the lead car while boarding is diverted to the trailing car. However if there's an unusually heavy load (e.g. at Gulph Mills or Ardmore Junction) sometimes both cars are opened. Most platforms have been extended to handle a full car length plus at least the front door of the trailing car. At those that are still too short, the lead car may be positioned so people exit from its rear door while others board via the front door of the second car.

> As Patrick mentioned, those platform lengths mean consists of 3 or more cars have been very rare. They usually occur only during emergencies and fan trips. OK, it's sort of cheating but I can claim to have ridden what could technically be called a four-car train when one of the CTA sets failed near Villanova. We waited for the next run to catch up, the two sets were coupled, and we ran as what the operator called the "P&W subway"

> The P&W has carried more reverse commuters for at least the last couple of decades. A lot of that ridership is service workers going to the Malls and various industrial parks like Radnor and Swedeland. Also the line lost a moderate percentage of its inbound riders during the post-Bullets shutdown and the CTA era. They switched to the RRD and despite much higher fares, never came back when the N5s arrived.

> Shortly after the first fare zone was eliminated I buttonholed a SEPTA rep at one of the NHSL extension meetings. He said it was _not_ about NPT - basically it was "we're doing it because we can". When I raised the issue of operator safety given the number of disputes that had occurred, his cynical answer was that (direct quote here) "people will get used to it after a while". Unfortunately, that seems to have happened.

> SEPTA backed off its plans for zoneless fares on the 124 and 125 buses after the Upper Merion Board of Supervisors intervened. A couple of us went to them to point out how inequitable it was for SEPTA to in effect target riders who were only using the services for local trips, especially where those two routes overlap others that still charge standard fares. Passengers riding within the township could have found themselves paying either a token ($1.85) or $3.75 cash for exactly the same ride simply based on which route number the bus carried. They refused to reverse the increase for the 123 and 150, but those buses are almost exclusively used by full-trip passengers anyway. Regardless it's still a pretty miserable precedent.

Worth noting the Electroliner/Libertyliner was 155' long and served 1963-1980ish. That was four articulated cars, IE three common trucks between the cars. What I never understood is why the P&W bought the least-suited equipment for the railroad. At the time the CNSM closed, they had hundreds of reasonably well-maintained single cars and there were also plenty of CA&E cars, including the recent 450-series, available. All were suited to faster running but were far more flexible from a size perspective than the Electroliner.