'Suspicious Package' at 30th Street EL

I was riding the EL last night around 8 p.m. and I noticed that the westbound cars were reading and saying 'All Stops to 15th Street ONLY.' This confused me some since I had never encountered the EL stopping just at 15th.

I was going to be transferring to the Green Line (subway surface/trolley) at 13th and I noticed the blue light flashing. Odd, again.

FInally, at 15th, the conductor came on and told us that this train would be ending at 15th because of a suspicious package at the 30th Street EL station. Also, that no trolleys were running in the tunnels. Great, now I have to walk to 22nd. I ride to 15th and when we got there, the doors didn't open and we waited in the train until the conductor came on and told us he had gotten the all clear to run to 69th.

I exited expecting to catch a trolley to 22nd. When I got to the concourse, the had all the gates open and were letting people in for free! Then, when I got to the trolley berths, they had a trolley sitting there, all locked down. I waited about 10 minutes and then gave up.

When I got to street level, there were busses swarming all over the place with 'SEPTA EMERGENCY SERVICES' and 'SEPTA RAIL SHUTTLE' on the destination boards.

Although I had to walk to my final destination, I had to admire how fast SEPTA deployed busses and shuttle services for the downed rail lines.

You're lucky. Once last summer there was a suspicious package at Girard, and the El stopped at SG. I got off and there were about 20 buses sitting there, but no one was allowed on because "my supervisor didn't tell me to let people on yet." I sat there for 20 minutes then walked to Fishtown.

I guess this is an unfortunate sign of the times---- though SEPTA could do much better in informing passengers of what's going on---at least with regard to alternative ways of getting to your destinations! Running through to 69th wouldn't help anyone who was only trying to go to 40th & Market!

Oops. Walt, I meant that he could run local to 69th. As in 'all normal' service.

OK--- sounds like a real SNAFU, though!