Empty Space around Millborne Station

[JimBoylan]

The order for interurban cars used to open the line included 2 compatible freight motors. When 1 of them burned about 1940, a replacement was bought from Eastern Michigan Rwys. The old freight motor 401 and the last of those old passenger cars 46, which could also be used as a locomotive, are in the Electric City Trolley Museum and Station in Scranton, Pa. The replacement freight motor 402 is at Rwys. to Yesterday in Orbisonia, Pa.

[SCB2525]

In case anyone didn't hear, the Sears property is now going to become a Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia satellite office, so there goes any hope of transit use.

[RDG467]

The freight service ended after Cobbs Creek flooded and covered the track with mud. Sears subsequently paved over a section of track that ran through their parking lot. The line was never used again.

Thanks for the update, Bob! Do you know when that happened? Reportedly the last freight runs were made around 1970. I went through a pile of Phila. Water Department data but couldn't pin down a specific flood around that time.

What are the certain FRA rules, and why does SEPTA's Broad St Line, which has, or at least had when I looked sometime in the last 10 years, a connection at Fern Rock, find it ok to be subject to those rules?

The only information I was able to find - both in the past and currently - is that so long as freight was carried, the FRA was "responsible for control". However no reference offered any details re what that control involved, which is why I left my statement kinda nebulous My wild guess is that the FRA would be in the picture if the P&W hauled cars from another operator, they'd be "foreign" equipment on P&W tracks. The absence of freight carriage might (emphasis on the subjunctive) explain why the BSS is exempt. Can anyone else chime in?

It's a shame Walt's no longer active on this thread, with his encyclopedic knowledge of the area's transit history....

Jeff, if you can find a copy of "The High Line", Vol 8 No.1 of Autumn, 1987, published by the Philadelphia Chapter of the PRRT&HS, it's devoted to the Cardington Branch. There's a good map of the branch showing the P&W connection. The PRR brought coal to the P&W powerhouse, along with whatever interchange traffic was necessary.

According to Ted Xaras, author, the last train on the Cardington ran before either July or August 1974, when flooding from a thunderstorm undermined portions of the branch just south of the Millbourne Mills Yard. CR pulled the rails in early 1980, according to Ted.

[JeffK]

Thanks much for the additional info. Over more years of commuting than I care to count, I’ve watched that section deteriorate to the point where it’s probably beyond recovery. Back in the early 1970s the DVRPC proposed integrating the Cardington branch into a cross-Philly extension of PATCO, with the goal of connecting it to the NHSL/P&W. Here we are 50 years on and the city’s still wondering if PATCO can make it to University City ...

FWIW I knew Ted Xaras many years ago when he was an adjunct at my alma mater. However I lost contact after that time.