Suburban Station wrote: we also know that there are limitations on capacity in the tunnel itself. seems to me that the RTM could well have served as a low level, diesel station for decades. dual powered locomotives came much later and come with their own set of tradeoffs. even today it would be cheaper to reactivate the RTM than add tracks to the CCCT.
Uh, first of all, there is this little thing called the Americans With Disabilities Act. I am not re-hashing that argument with you, just putting it out here.
Secondly, how in the world is it cheaper to "reactivate the RTM?" The Reading Terminal headhouse and ROW have been repurposed for the Convention Center, and it was originally determined that building a rail bridge over Vine Street was cost-prohibitive.
The CCCT had efficiencies and cost savings that the Reading Terminal never could have provided had it stayed open.