PA route 3 line

would a regional rail line paralelling PA3 to West Chester via broomall and Newtown Square be a good idea? The R3 could instead run down US1 to Kenneth Square. The new West Chester line would be the R4 and the Quakertown/Allentown line would be the R4's other end.

Until June 4, 1954 there was such a line---- it was the 69th Street-West Chester Line of the Red Arrow Lines. ( This line was not commuter rail, but was a side of the road trolley) This line was the line which began the whole Red Arrow System, and the original corporate name of the company ( Philadelphia & West Chester Traction Company) reflected this. The trolley was replaced by a bus ( Red Arrow Route W- SEPTA Route 104) when WC PIke was widened. Red Arrow was confronted with the choice of either relocating the line, or abandoning it, and, partly because the line really needed to be double tracked beyond Westgate Hills, it was decided to bustitute the portion between Westgate Hills and West Chester. The 69th Street- Westgate Hills ( Double Track) portion lasted until 1958.

Ron DeGraw's books have some great pictures of the line.

There was more to the story than just the practical aspects of relocating the line. Granted, relocation was no small engineering matter, but there were many political obstacles as well. The early 1950s were the beginning of the era of massive highway projects and NCL's ascendancy. The WC trolley line was seen as antiquated by the planners of the time. What we now call PennDOT was then known (much more honestly, IMO) as the Department of Highways. They were not interested in helping transit lines to succeed. One particular objection was that all of the grade crossings would delay road traffic(*). The Taylors actually received tax incentives to pull up some of the rails and bustitute.

Walt, perhaps you have a better memory but I vaguely recall that there was some kind of non-binding referendum on retention of the trolleys. I think that the vote was about 4-1 or 5-1 in favor of keeping the line but the Highway Department already had its plans in place.


(*) See the huge, multimegabuck "flyover" viaduct proposed for the now-moribund P&W extension so that it wouldn't have to cross First Ave. or Valley Forge Road at grade.

JeffK wrote: Walt, perhaps you have a better memory but I vaguely recall that there was some kind of non-binding referendum on retention of the trolleys. I think that the vote was about 4-1 or 5-1 in favor of keeping the line but the Highway Department already had its plans in place.

There was--- it was apparently conducted by a civic group which had formed to oppose bustitution of that line. How accurate a reflection it was of actual public sentiment at that time, is probably questionable given the nature of the times.

In retrospect, that line was doomed anyway. There had been an increasing number of grade crossing accidents involving the trolleys and automobiles, and the line had more traffic than the 13.5 mile single track segment could handle. In addition, even with the purchase of the 14 St. Louis Cars in 1949, Red Arrow couldn't schedule enough one man trolleys during peak periods to allow them to eliminate the use of the two- man Center Door Cars which cost twice as much to operate. Once West Chester was abandoned (bustituted) Red Arrow, rather quickly, scrapped most of the Center Door Cars. This may be the only example of a trolley line being abandoned because ( in part) it had more traffic than it could handle.