Phoenixville to Paoli

I would rather see the former R6 line extended from Norristown all the way to Reading and Wyomissing if Phoenixville is to have rail service. Other than that, I'm not sure if Phoenixville to Paoli rail service is a viable idea. I don't even see that line as being full time service, since it doesn't go directly to CC. One similar line which I can see working in PA is between Reading and Allentown. Why will the line work?????? Because you have Emmaus, the corporate parks in Lower Macungie, Kutztown University, and a viable link between the third and the fifth largest cities in PA. That line would get more ridership, especially if Amtrak was able to restore service to NYC and Harrisburg via the Lehigh Valley, making that link a de facto local service. I just like to see SEPTA put their revenue where it's more viable rather than trying to run a very expensive light rail where it might not get any ridership. I'd also love to see diesel service returned in the commuter rail system. I don't see why it's so hard doing that, especially since Suburban and Market East Stations have been retrofitted for that purpose.

I have not seen any mention in the media recently on the proposed "Green Line". Has anyone else ? Any updates ?

wanderer34 wrote:I'd also love to see diesel service returned in the commuter rail system. I don't see why it's so hard doing that, especially since Suburban and Market East Stations have been retrofitted for that purpose.

What are you talking about?

I was referring to the old RDG trains that the Reading RR used during it's heyday at Reading Terminal and the same for Suburban Station. Market East Station was initially designed to exhaust diesel fumes, but for some strange reason, SEPTA stopped running diesel trains, resulting in a big decrease in the commuter rail's coverage, which is why the old Reading RR main stops at Norristown instead of the railroad's namesake and the old Bethlehem branch goes as far as Doylestown and not into the Lehigh Valley.

wanderer34 wrote:Market East Station was initially designed to exhaust diesel fumes........

Even IF that were true, the rest of the tunnel is not designed to exhaust diesel fumes, neither is Suburban.

That could be the strange reason that diesels are not operated in the CCCT.

wanderer34 wrote:I was referring to the old RDG trains that the Reading RR used during it's heyday at Reading Terminal and the same for Suburban Station. Market East Station was initially designed to exhaust diesel fumes, but for some strange reason, SEPTA stopped running diesel trains, resulting in a big decrease in the commuter rail's coverage, which is why the old Reading RR main stops at Norristown instead of the railroad's namesake and the old Bethlehem branch goes as far as Doylestown and not into the Lehigh Valley.

"but for some strange reason"? You make it seem as trivial as someone deciding at the very last moment not to order coffee with their dessert while dining out.

If that's the extent of your grasp of why SEPTA's diesel services were killed, then you need to educate yourself a bit more. Among many other contributing factors during the early 1980s was a massive (and growing!) financial shortfall that not only kicked the crutches out from under the already long-ailing diesel trains, but which also very nearly shut down the entire system permanently.

Franklin Gowen wrote:Among many other contributing factors during the early 1980s was a massive (and growing!) financial shortfall that not only kicked the crutches out from under the already long-ailing diesel trains, but which also very nearly shut down the entire system permanently.

Absolutely true, Franklin. One of the few advantages of being middle-aged is that you remember how things were run 3 or 4 decades ago versus today. By the 1980s commuter rail systems were hot potatoes in many areas. Transit systems were trying to find operators for lines that had been spun off by private railroads that wanted to shed all vestiges of passenger service. Amtrak and Conrail became the operators of last resort for a while but they too wanted to concentrate on their core businesses. And (please, keep the flames low) the Reagan administration was no friend of mass transit; federal support was cut waaayyy back leaving many systems to rely on less-generous state and local funding. When SEPTA took over from Conrail the cutbacks led to a multi-week strike that by itself nearly killed the rail system.

The effects of lost funding rippled through all of SEPTA. The BSS was, as I recall, down to about 2 dozen antique cars that seemingly had mean-failure rates measured in hours. Many buses were pushing their maximum service lives. The P&W was still trying to squeeze a few more years out of the Bullets and Strafford cars* which led to a spate of accidents that killed one person, forced the line to shut down for months, and almost resulted in it being paved over.

Bottom line, as bad as SEPTA has seemed to us in recent years it was a couple of orders of magnitude worse 30 years ago.

(*) OK, partly SEPTA's fault for bailing on an earlier proposal for a joint order that would have been much less expensive.