Subway-Surface tunnel passenger capacity

I've read before about how crowded the trolleys can get in the tunnel but never had a chance to ride. Saturday around 7:30 PM I did and it was mobbed. I boarded at 19th St going westbound and got off at 30th to transfer to the MFL. The route 11 car I was on was standing room only with people packed in the aisle. When we got to 30th the platform was so crowded I could hardly get off the car and had to fight my way to the stairs which were also jammed with people who couldn't get down to the platform. Waiting on the MFL platform 3 other trolleys came in and all of them were packed to the rafters. A log jam of trolleys formed because the first of the 3 was so full it took several minutes for it to get out the station.

Is this a normal occurance? I've noticed bigger than expected crowds on the MFL between 7 and 8 on Saturday, I guess this is due to the gallery/other shops closing at 7 so there is a small rush hour. Maybe SEPTA should add service at that time to help with the crowds if that is the case.

Low floor articulated trolleys sure would be nice too, so more folks could be packed in and boarding could be sped up, though I guess that is far down the road given SEPTA's $$ woes. I could only imaging how crowded it is during the weekday rush.

At that time of night, the individual lines are running around 15-20 minutes apart per line so the cars can get quite crowded. Wait until summer, it tends to get worse as more people are out in the streets.

What is the seating and standee capacity of a subway-surface car? It would be nice if SEPTA had articulated LRVs instead of the single-unit cars.

The problem with addiing more cars is that there are five lines converging into a single-track tunnel. If the minimum headway is 3 minutes between cars, you have a 15 minute headway on individual lines. If you try to add more cars, you'll just have more cars backed up at the tunnel portals.

I don't know about the LRV's, but both the Air-Electric and All Electric PCC Cars ( predecessors to the LRV's on the Subway Surface Lines) had a maximum capacity- seated and standing of 90. ( Used to know the actual seating capacities as I was a part time traffic checker for the PTC in 1966 & 67, but I have forgotten that.--- The 90 I do remember because it was greater than any other type of transit vehicle except the several types of subway and subway-elevated cars).