Signals through jenkintown interlocking

The computer does route the trains, and if you and your wisdom can make a 30mph turn out and elevated curve rated for 30 any faster then your better than the rest of us, you can tell a computer to run a train at 70mph but it doesn't mean it can do it. I think you really need to get a grasp on rail life railroading, and stop coming up with fantasy ideas from in your head.

That might sound harsh, but your neither an expert nor a railroader qualified to make these claims/suggestions.

A suggestion for you, apply to the railroad (any will do) and see how far you get, maybe even apply for the maintenance engineering dept or ET dept, they would love someone with your expertise on the team

Have you ever noticed that the main line and West Trenton branch merge together with opposite curve banking RIGHT AT Jenkintown station? THAT is the cause of your 30 mph speed restriction within the switches. The restriction continues north on the main line because Rices Mill Rd crossing is in a somewhat blind curve. The restriction through Jenkintown station itself is temporary and due to the reconstruction of Greenwood Ave. bridge.

You might be able to squeeze a tiny bit more speed out of the junction with more money than it would be worth.

As for routing a late local ahead of an on-time express or some such situation, that's a different situation entirely.

Fouling switches? Although the problem has been exacerbated somewhat due to the fact that the train stop has been moved north due to the bridge reconstruction, when finished, trains will be able to stop under the bridge again and longer trains won't foul.

Save for Norristown, I've never seen freight on SEPTA territory any time but late at night between last and first trains, so I don't know why it would be a factor.

SCB2525 wrote:Save for Norristown, I've never seen freight on SEPTA territory any time but late at night between last and first trains, so I don't know why it would be a factor.

Because the passenger trains might leave the track at night, but the signals do not.

Freight runs between west trenton station & near woodbourme station quite frequently. There are active customers on the other side from the yard near woodbourne as well, which means freight runs under the wires to get there.

I feel i need to emphasize that what i'm talking about has nothing to do with "railroading" but system efficiency, in whatever form that manifests, i simply feel SEPTA could do more with what it has, LOTS more. And standing there at jenkintown i see clearly one spot that is NOT efficient. I don't know details of a system that would improve things, thats not my area of expertise. But, i can state the observable, and make postulations based on observable fact, which is all i've done.

My exasperated answer is to re-signal the entire RRD to maximize throughput, be it a single track with sidings, or a 4 track "broad way". Then, i suggested models we could follow, SUCCESSFUL models that i can point to and say "hey look at that, maybe we could use that?". Pretty sure this was mistaken for "i am an expert, lets all do what i say!".

In any case, i'm jumping off the assumption express here, because i don't need my out of the box thinking from a transit advocate & passenger's perspective bashed repeatedly.

Yes, SEPTA should do a lot of things, but SEPTA either doesn't care or SEPTA doesn't have the money. Re-working the signals would cost SEPTA money it doesn't have and SEPTA is already rather cool on the whole RRD to begin with since it moves the fewest number of people yet has some of the highest costs. Ever since the Fox Chase Rapid Transit line SEPTA has had a dream of "transitizing" the RRD to get the costs down. Simplified signals and employee-safe ATC are all part of this long term goal. In a 1234 Market tour I was told point blank by a SEPTA VP that the cockamamie NPT turnstile plan is to allow for TPTO on all RRD trains. It doesn't matter that it will delay passengers and make the system harder to use. SEPTA simply doesn't care because they are broke and are being pulled in like 5 different directions. I remember how the tour guide went on about how they shifted the 1234 Market cleaning schedule around so they could save like $30,000 on having to keep the lights on at night and there was some other like really petty thing they did to save another $400,000 elsewhere. SEPTA is literally running around picking up pennies so do not expect them to give one flying frack about improving service..

SCB2525 wrote:Save for Norristown, I've never seen freight on SEPTA territory any time but late at night between last and first trains, so I don't know why it would be a factor.

CSX runs at least twice weekly between Woodbourne Yard and Lansdale, usually on Monday and Thursday evenings with the Lansdale run entering and reversing through Jenkintown around 10PM. These trains can easily be over 30 cars. PNER runs on the Doylestown and Warminster Branches, also usually at night but there have been several daylight runs to Warminster already this year. Admittedly, the Warminster runs are typically relatively short with only 1-4 cars bracketed by a pair of locos.

If reverse moves through Jenkintown were disruptive enough as to dictate block length, perhaps they should propose having CSX restore the wye.

How? It's directly related to the OP; signaling/operations at Jenkintown.

Restoring the wye for freight use, would it even make a difference? If so you could have the freight companies pay for it, as SEPTA is broker than a bum in a desert.

C746 runs with an engineer on both ends of the train most nights they run the mainline.

(You'll hear 2 desk ask if they are setup with an engineer on both ends when they depart Woodbourne).

Changing ends at Jenkintown takes less than a minute when they have 2.

It's not worth rebuilding the wye track, or restoring service to Newtown, or resignalling Jenkintown, or all the other crazy ideas.

Interchange work doesn't earn a ton of money for railroads.

Crazy ideas is what made the world we live in. Just saying.

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MattW wrote:

SCB2525 wrote:Save for Norristown, I've never seen freight on SEPTA territory any time but late at night between last and first trains, so I don't know why it would be a factor.

Because the passenger trains might leave the track at night, but the signals do not.

Yes but being that the freight would likely not be following nor be followed in the wee hours, it doesn't make sense to optimize signaling for freights.

I wonder what the justification was for not keeping waysides up to Jenkintown? I can absolutely see a justification of 562 on the branches but with the traffic seen up to Jenkintown, why limit it to Wayne Jct?

SCB2525 wrote:

MattW wrote:

SCB2525 wrote:Save for Norristown, I've never seen freight on SEPTA territory any time but late at night between last and first trains, so I don't know why it would be a factor.

Because the passenger trains might leave the track at night, but the signals do not.

Yes but being that the freight would likely not be following nor be followed in the wee hours, it doesn't make sense to optimize signaling for freights.

I wonder what the justification was for not keeping waysides up to Jenkintown? I can absolutely see a justification of 562 on the branches but with the traffic seen up to Jenkintown, why limit it to Wayne Jct?

Installation and maintenance costs?