Line Abandonments

I ran a search on the Surface Transportation Board website for line sales, abandonments, and trackage rights agreements in this area for SEPTA / Conrail

I noticed nearly 10 years ago, SEPTA sold the Octoraro Line from Chaddsford Jct to the PA/MD state line to East Penn Railways.

Other than that branch line sale, and some trackage right agreement shifts in Lansdale, they are the only petitions on the STb website.

When did SEPTA officially make a motion to petition the ICC or STB to discontinue service to Bethlehem, West Chester, and Newtown?

Furthermore, I can't find any documentation or hearings to sell/abandon the Newtown Line north of Fox Chase. Was there some other holding company that owned the ROW? On paper, I can't find any board decision to grant SEPTA the right to sell the Newtown Line, or abandon the ROW into a recreational trail. And if a decision was granted, what was the effective date? Did any common freight carriers or shippers hold trackage rights on the Newtown Branch to challenge the decision to abandon the line?

The most recent STB transaction for SEPTA was in 2005:

http://www.stb.dot.gov/Decisions/readin ... enDocument" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

SEPTA technically never abandoned the Newtown, West Chester, and Bethlehem lines. SEPTA can cancel service without a fed petition, only when abandoning and/or selling a line. Letting a line deteriorate beyond use also does not require any paperwork unless another railroad comes to the table a petitions their need to use/access the line.

Newtown, Chester Creek, Cynwyd, and Bethlehem lines are leased out to the local municipalities (I think for a $1) for trails. Under these leases, SEPTA could take them over again for rail service if they need to - at least on paper, but in reality, the probability of them being able to do this (and not raising NIMBY hell), is less then that of replacing the PP fleet with the steam locomotives at the RR meseum of PA. The rails to trails is a great program (tool) for abandoning a railroad ROW without getting the Feds involved. I believe SEPTA is the only railroad to ever activity initiate a program to convert their ROW's to trails.

at the time SEPTA simply did not have the money to maintain the West chester line so it was "temporarily" suspended

Have other agencies done other rail to trail conversions and what are their prospects for returning train service in the future? The only one I can think of off the top of my head is the B&M Lexington branch. That's owned by the MBTA and today is known as the Minuteman bikeway which goes from Alewife station out to Bedford.

I am very outraged by SEPTA's actions with their unused rights of way. They don't have the nerve to formally abandon line so they chose a defacto abandonment to guarantee that they will never have to deal with the possibility of trains to Bethlehem, Newtown, or Reading (via Cywnyd). The most head scratching part about it to me is that there was barely a 1% chance of any of those lines seeing service again. But SEPTA wouldn't settle for anything less than 0.

I was only able to find documentation on a single trail-to-rail reconversion, and that was only 1.9 miles of track in Upper Michigan, reactivated in 2013 for use by a mining company.

My 5¢ opinion is that once passenger lines are abandoned, reactivation is extremely difficult for a number of reasons. Unless there's a huge and sudden population explosion, growth around the former lines takes place incrementally and often haphazardly which allows (1) people to adapt to the standard American approach of everyone-in-a-car and (2) development to encroach on the ROW. The Bethlehem line is already severed in a few places, and proximity of housing to the old ROW brings NIMBY eruptions if new service is proposed. Failure to build safeguards against these outcomes into earlier rail-to-trail conversions has made restoration much more difficult than it could or should be.

But more seriously, trails have their own constituency. They're important from a recreational and health standpoint and become a kind of linear green space providing opportunities that are almost always difficult to replace if a route is reactivated. That makes "de-abandonment" a zero-sum game for many, where rail users' gain comes at the expense of trail users. Can the trail be relocated? If not, then what? Who will pay for it? Municipal authorities? The state as a whole? The railroad? All thorny questions without simple answers.

In the interests of full disclosure I admit that in addition to being a rail advocate I'm also a trail user, leaving me in a position of being in strong conflict with myself on this issue.

Wingnut wrote:[SEPTA doesn't] ...have the nerve to formally abandon a line so they chose a defacto abandonment to guarantee that they will never have to deal with the possibility of [new service].

Apologies for modified your wording a bit but what you've described fits more than just commuter rail. SEPTA has a long, sad, and sordid history of de facto abandonments of its trolley lines as well, both rails and trackless. In all cynicism I don't expect to ever see the 56 or 29 come back under wire, and even the northern end of the 23 will forever be satisfying the bus advocates at 1234.

JeffK wrote:My 5¢ opinion is that once passenger lines are abandoned, reactivation is extremely difficult for a number of reasons. Unless there's a huge and sudden population explosion, growth around the former lines takes place incrementally and often haphazardly which allows (1) people to adapt to the standard American approach of everyone-in-a-car and (2) development to encroach on the ROW. The Bethlehem line is already severed in a few places, and proximity of housing to the old ROW brings NIMBY eruptions if new service is proposed. Failure to build safeguards against these outcomes into earlier rail-to-trail conversions has made restoration much more difficult than it could or should be.

Case in point: http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesd ... Line-Path/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

JeffK wrote:I was only able to find documentation on a single trail-to-rail reconversion, and that was only 1.9 miles of track in Upper Michigan, reactivated in 2013 for use by a mining company.

My 5¢ opinion is that once passenger lines are abandoned, reactivation is extremely difficult for a number of reasons. Unless there's a huge and sudden population explosion, growth around the former lines takes place incrementally and often haphazardly which allows (1) people to adapt to the standard American approach of everyone-in-a-car and (2) development to encroach on the ROW. The Bethlehem line is already severed in a few places, and proximity of housing to the old ROW brings NIMBY eruptions if new service is proposed. Failure to build safeguards against these outcomes into earlier rail-to-trail conversions has made restoration much more difficult than it could or should be.

But more seriously, trails have their own constituency. They're important from a recreational and health standpoint and become a kind of linear green space providing opportunities that are almost always difficult to replace if a route is reactivated. That makes "de-abandonment" a zero-sum game for many, where rail users' gain comes at the expense of trail users. Can the trail be relocated? If not, then what? Who will pay for it? Municipal authorities? The state as a whole? The railroad? All thorny questions without simple answers.

In the interests of full disclosure I admit that in addition to being a rail advocate I'm also a trail user, leaving me in a position of being in strong conflict with myself on this issue.

Apologies for modified your wording a bit but what you've described fits more than just commuter rail. SEPTA has a long, sad, and sordid history of de facto abandonments of its trolley lines as well, both rails and trackless. In all cynicism I don't expect to ever see the 56 or 29 come back under wire, and even the northern end of the 23 will forever be satisfying the bus advocates at 1234.

Of the three rail trails that have been built so far, the one that angers me the most is Lower Saucon. At the very least, the Ivy Ridge and Newtown corridors have well-established alternate rail routes nearby. But the Bethlehem line has no redundancy. It's the only viable rail right of way between two of the largest metro areas in the state. When SEPTA didn't exercise their right of refusal to maintain the ROW, PennDOT or some other authority should have intervened and cited SEPTA for dereliction of duty. Nonsense like this is why a different agency not subject to everyday political whims and fads should responsible for state owned rail lines.

Anyway, I fear that even the prospect of restoring train service to the Quakertown area is in jeopardy. A recent plan proposes rail-and-trail extending down towards Lansdale (obviously the path will have to bypass the Perkasie tunnel). Rail-and-trail may be acceptable with a slow moving freight train once a week or whatever the current service level is. But can a trail and a track with multiple weekday passenger trains coexist for a dozen miles or more? I seriously doubt it.

The 23 and 56 irk me too as well as the South Philly trackless lines. It's like SEPTA was leading us on by letting so many streetcar routes live on into the public ownership era only to slowly kill them off one by one. But still it makes me wonder. Why didn't PTC convert ALL trolley lines to buses like they did in every other system under NCL owndership?

Wingnut wrote:Why didn't PTC convert ALL trolley lines to buses like they did in every other system under NCL owndership?

I'm not really sure, just speculating ... some of the lines may have survived simply because of the inertia that typified work on many Philly infrastructure projects of the time, and possibly there was a coattail effect on surface lines from the fact that even NCL couldn't figure out how to bustitute underground routes.

JeffK wrote:I'm not really sure, just speculating ... some of the lines may have survived simply because of the inertia that typified work on many Philly infrastructure projects of the time, and possibly there was a coattail effect on surface lines from the fact that even NCL couldn't figure out how to bustitute underground routes.

It's unlikely they would've targeted the subway surface lines. The tunnel is what saved them just as tunnels saved the trolleys in Boston, San Francisco, and Newark. The all surface lines however were fair game. Now it is sometimes asked why the 47 was the first streetcar route abandoned under SEPTA auspices. The 47 went because of construction projects in center city area including the Vine Street Expressway which eliminated its northbound path on 9th street. It also ran south on 8th street and that was disrupted by a cut and cover project to create separate 8th Street Stations for PATCO and the Broad Ridge Spur.

I also find it curious that the other big city in Pennsylvania had the largest US streetcar system survive into public ownership...only to be slaughtered at that point.

The transit writer Van Wilkins once pointed out that in addition to Philadelphia, St. Louis and Los Angeles still had operating streetcar lines when the properties were conveyed from NCL to public authorities. I know that the five LA routes that survived to the end were among the busiest (and there were no tunnels or other right-of-way issues involved--and they were all-street-running except for a bit of center-reservation here and there).

Speak of the devil, the Inquirer had a big article on the subject of dormant SEPTA lines in yesterday's paper.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Track ... uture.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I haven't read the article word for word but I think the graphic showing the lines in question would've been lot better if it also highlighted the Ivy Ridge and Newtown already converted to trail use. Instead, it just shows their entire routes as "unused".

http://www.phillyvoice.com/inside-septa ... way-stops/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Long before there was a Mural Arts Program, the walls of Philadelphia's subway tunnels acted as a blank canvas for tagging. Long before galleries were selling "modern graffiti art" and celebrities were hanging it on their walls, there was Cornbread, a Philadelphian known as the first modern graffiti artist. And long before the SEPTA subway became the two-pronged system we know today, there were more stations and bigger plans.

This will show you stuff on the abandoned subway tunnels/stations

But more seriously, trails have their own constituency. They're important from a recreational and health standpoint and become a kind of linear green space providing opportunities that are almost always difficult to replace if a route is reactivated. That makes "de-abandonment" a zero-sum game for many, where rail users' gain comes at the expense of trail users. Can the trail be relocated? If not, then what? Who will pay for it? Municipal authorities? The state as a whole? The railroad? All thorny questions without simple answers.

In the interests of full disclosure I admit that in addition to being a rail advocate I'm also a trail user, leaving me in a position of being in strong conflict with myself on this issue.

Well said. I feel the same way. A little sad seeing the dark signals along the Newtown Branch aka Pennypack Trail, but at the same time it's good seeing more people using the corridor on a sunny day than probably rode three trains' worth in a 1978 rush hour. You look at the development patterns on the map, and the Newtown line certainly didn't serve the most populous of areas. And operationally it must have been a bit of a headache, with all the curves between Huntingdon Valley and Woodmont. As someone modeling the line in the 1958-1966 era in HO, I find that exploring by bike and getting an engineer's eye view - "qualifying" on it, really - is great for getting the spirit of how things were, much more so than having to figure out from maps where the long-gone ROW was.

Not to keep bludgeoning a dead horse but a lot has changed since 1978. Run with modern way and equipment and no transfer the line would hold its own with the lower end of the branch. That's what's so sad about seeing it become a trail.