Drastic Schedule Change

Was perusing the new Regional Rail Schedules for the April schedule change.

Looks like every line pair has been mis-matched except Fox Chase to CHW and Norristown to Wilmington on the weekends.

Thorndale trains will run to West Trenton
Elwyn trains run to Doylestown
Airport trains: half run to Warminster, half to CHE.

Anyone have an intelligent, factual, explanation as to what is going on? It seems like every schedule change since Jeff K. took over has resulted in drastic changes to the RR operating plan, which (no doubt) will compound delays and annulments when they are short on manpower, and there is a service disruption.

SEPTA crossed that bridge when they scrapped the R-Numbers; there's no such thing as a mis-match any more.
Some University City passengers might get annoyed with the changes if they've been accustomed to a through ride.

The ability to match trains without respect to permanent pairings isnt mismatching.
My guess is che trains are more reliable. Not sure anyone on the thorndale line cares where the train goes after jenkintown
Why do you think the changes will reduce reliability?

Switching up the line pairings isn't anything cynical. SEPTA's probably basing some on the new line parings on passenger movement. For example, more people coming from the Doylestown Line might be heading to University City whereas less people from the West Trenton Line are than before, so why send WT trains in that direction? Likewise with the Airport Line - more people from the CHE line are most likely going in the direction of the Airport now than before.

University city is becoming an important enough stop that people arengoing to eant one seat rides. On method to achieve that is more trains to one of the lines beyond it (elwyn, airport, wilmington) unless tjere is a way to turn trains at or beyond u city

Suburban Station wrote:University city is becoming an important enough stop that people arengoing to eant one seat rides. On method to achieve that is more trains to one of the lines beyond it (elwyn, airport, wilmington) unless tjere is a way to turn trains at or beyond u city

You could turn trains at UC but laying them over there would be a problem with there only being two tracks.

Everyone:

With the coming schedule changes routings will change - this has been done before and is a way to better match
ridership, equipment and crew utilization for the revised services that will be offered by SEPTA Regional Rail.

See: http://www.septa.org/schedules/upcoming-rail.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Changing line pairings is nothing new - even when the R numbers were still in use with the best example being
the Manayunk-Norristown (R6) trains paired up with the Wilmington-Newark (R2) Line.

The biggest historical mismatch was Norristown with Cynwyd and the change to make Regional Rail's "Dinky"
run to and from Suburban Station solely was a good move along with the Norristown pairing change.

There may well be more demand from the Reading side for University City service and if so operating trains
from Doylestown and Lansdale to Media and Elwyn is a way to serve UC in this manner.

Over time Airport Line train routings have changed to build ridership from the Reading side and it was found
that West Trenton and Warminster trains running through were the most practical of these pairings and were
in service for the longest time period even with the changes to rush hour and midday weekday trains recently
to terminate some of these trains at Jenkintown. Operating some Airport trains to Chestnut Hill East will be a
interesting change - one that makes more sense to me then the Trenton R7 pairing was or is.

When peak hour and midday Airport Line ridership statistics become more known trains terminating at Jenkintown
should be extended one stop to Glenside - which will allow trains to operate on the proper southbound track at JKT
ending the single track "bottleneck" against northbound trains that has been created by the use of the Jenkintown
Layoff to turn Airport trains. The Glenside Layoff is a better location to turn these Airport trains.

It will be interesting to see how these schedule changes work out and if they improve service for riders...

MACTRAXX

I suspect that the Airport destination was removed from West Trenton weekend trains because of the new single track bottleneck near the end of the West Trenton line.

The thing I don't like about this change,is that there will now be only one single seat ride between Jenkintown and the Airport on the weekend. I wonder if either the Doylestown to Elwyn or West Trenton to Malvern trains will neatly coordinate with the Chestnut Hill East to Airport trains in Center City - not a too tight connection but also not a long wait. Going to the Airport is obviously the more crucial amount of travel time, but the other direction is important, too.

I see that Neshaminy Falls is being restored as a stop on 3755 more than three years after it and Meadowbrook were dropped. Can we hope for a Meadowbrook stop restoration (even as a flag stop) in the next schedule change?

Personally, I'm still waiting for half-hour headways for midday and weekend service on the Manayunk/Norristown line and half-hour headways for weekend service on the Lansdale/Doylestown line. Also, I wish there was a late night run from Wilmington to Center City on Saturday night. Admittedly, it's there for weeknights, but not on the weekend.

JeffersonLeeEng wrote:Personally, I'm still waiting for half-hour headways for midday and weekend service on the Manayunk/Norristown line and half-hour headways for weekend service on the Lansdale/Doylestown line. Also, I wish there was a late night run from Wilmington to Center City on Saturday night. Admittedly, it's there for weeknights, but not on the weekend.

seems like they're adding a little bit of Wilmington service each timetable change although I agree it's time to shift focus to the weekend. I'm also waiting for half hour to Lansdale (probably not to Doylestown) and especially Norristown which septa actually said was coming. perhaps they're waiting for ptc work to be complete? those are the changes that are going to move the ridership needle in the short term

SS and JLE:

Increasing service on both the Lansdale-Doylestown and the Manayunk-Norristown Lines to half hourly would be a
good move to increase ridership but remember SEPTA would need the equipment and crews to allow this type of
service increase to be implemented. A first addition could be to add trains during the busiest weekend hours in the
morning and afternoons to and from Lansdale and the Norristown Transportation Center avoiding the single track
Doylestown Branch and NTC to Elm Street in Norristown respectively.

If DTC is willing to fund Wilmington-Newark Line service increases to operate all trains to Wilmington 7 days/week
instead of terminating trains at Marcus Hook this would be an easy service improvement that could benefit many.

MACTRAXX

MACTRAXX wrote:SS and JLE:

Increasing service on both the Lansdale-Doylestown and the Manayunk-Norristown Lines to half hourly would be a
good move to increase ridership but remember SEPTA would need the equipment and crews to allow this type of
service increase to be implemented. A first addition could be to add trains during the busiest weekend hours in the
morning and afternoons to and from Lansdale and the Norristown Transportation Center avoiding the single track
Doylestown Branch and NTC to Elm Street in Norristown respectively.

If DTC is willing to fund Wilmington-Newark Line service increases to operate all trains to Wilmington 7 days/week
instead of terminating trains at Marcus Hook this would be an easy service improvement that could benefit many.

MACTRAXX

A few years back there was a article about Jeff Knueppel wanting to increase service on the Manayunk/Norristown line and the CHE by short-turning some trains

Article from 2014: http://www.phillymag.com/news/2014/09/0 ... -tomorrow/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Regarding MACTRAXX's post above, extending service to Wilmington would be the only service increase not requiring additional equipment or crews.

As to the West Trenton changes, a comment has been made by someone with contacts at SEPTA (not an employee) that one reason was to increase the layover time at WT from (I think) 13 minutes to 20 minutes, since 13 minutes leaves little or no time to recover from delays. I haven't seen any new schedules--does anyone know whether that checks out?

ExCon90 wrote:Regarding MACTRAXX's post above, extending service to Wilmington would be the only service increase not requiring additional equipment or crews.

As to the West Trenton changes, a comment has been made by someone with contacts at SEPTA (not an employee) that one reason was to increase the layover time at WT from (I think) 13 minutes to 20 minutes, since 13 minutes leaves little or no time to recover from delays. I haven't seen any new schedules--does anyone know whether that checks out?

This was probably the best decision septa has ever made. I take the 445 from Jefferson, and the added 15 mins before NJT leaves is so much better.