West Chester SEPTA Stop

Does anyone have any info on when West Chester has a Septa Stop?

How long was the ride from West Chester to Center City?

I also read that the West Chester Station was closed so that SEPTA could do something to the Exton Station? What was that all about?

Tom_E_Reynolds wrote:Does anyone have any info on when West Chester has a Septa Stop?

From November 1858 until autumn 1986.

Tom_E_Reynolds wrote:How long was the ride from West Chester to Center City?

That depends on the time period you're interested in. I have older West Chester timetables than these, but they're a pain to dig up.

Penn Central Form 36 public timetable, effective October 26 1969:

• ALL stations between West Chester and Media were flagstops.
  
  9-1/2 weekday round trips between WC and Philly. 3 eastbound and 4 westbound trips required a change of trains in Media.
  
  3 Saturday round trips; all were through trains.
  
  NO Sunday or holiday service.

Weekday eastbound rush-hour train 0714 was a through train, going from West Chester to Media in 30 minutes, then ran as a nonstop express from Media to 30th Street in 24 minutes. Four more minutes from 30th St. to Penn Center / Suburban Station. Total trip duration -- 54 minutes.

Weekday eastbound midmorning train 0728 went from West Chester to Media in 27 minutes, skipping the flagstops at Locksley and Elwyn. It was only a shuttle train, and the timetable allowed one minute to change trains at Media. The Media-Suburban Station segment was covered in 32 minutes, making all local stops except 49th Street. Total trip duration -- 60 minutes.


...and almost precisely one decade later...


SEPTA / Conrail RR-18 public timetable, effective October 28 1979:

• ALL stations between West Chester and Media were flagstops.
  
  10-1/2 weekday round trips between WC and Philly. 2 eastbound and 2 westbound trips required a change of trains in Media.
  
  Still only 3 Saturday round trips; all were through trains.
  
  And still NO Sunday or holiday service.

Weekday eastbound rush-hour train 0714 was still on the timetable as a through train, as it was in 1969. It went from West Chester to Media in 31 minutes, then ran as a nonstop express from Media to 30th Street in 24 minutes. Four more minutes from 30th St. to Penn Center / Suburban Station. Total trip duration -- 55 minutes.

Weekday eastbound midmorning through train 0730 went from West Chester to Media in 31 minutes, skipping the flagstop at Locksley. The Media-Suburban Station segment was covered in 32 minutes, making all local stops. Total trip duration -- 63 minutes.

So we see from this that WC-Media train speed declined noticeably (15% slower) from 1969 to 1979. However, by 1979 the nuisance of changing trains in Media was almost entirely eliminated; only four trains total still operated as WC-Media shuttles. One more West Chester weekday rountrip was added. No changes for West Chester service on weekends had been made.

Tom_E_Reynolds wrote:I also read that the West Chester Station was closed so that SEPTA could do something to the Exton Station? What was that all about?

The scuttlebutt I heard was that sometime after the West Chester trains were killed in 1986, SEPTA offered the Chester County Board of Commissioners a choice: rehab the West Chester Branch in order to again provide direct service to Philly via Media, OR improve service frequency via Exton and Paoli along the faster & more direct Main Line route. They allegedly chose the latter, and the rest is history. (Corrections to this account of events are welcomed.)

If anyone else on this forum has 1979-1986 SEPTA timetables in their possession for West Chester service, please post a sample similar to the above. I recall that a substantial overhaul of the line was performed west of Elwyn sometime around the 1981-2 period, and I'm curious what effect it had on speeding up the service during the final few years.

The West Chester station is now home to the WCRR. Hopefully, if service can be re-extended to Wawa, West Chester may one day follow.

When was the wire west of Elwyn removed?

R36 Combine Coach wrote:The West Chester station is now home to the WCRR. Hopefully, if service can be re-extended to Wawa, West Chester may one day follow.

When was the wire west of Elwyn removed?

http://www.trainweb.org/phillynrhs/RPOTW060416.html

From the looks of that, around 2006.

I took a ride on the WCRR the weekend some people dropped the catenary. The WCRR guy said people were trying to steal it. Septa just took it down.

As the individual who wrote the temp order to suspend Route R3 service to West Chester for the last time, I can confirm that the Route R5 service to Downingtown was a factor. But there was no overt approval from Chester County to swap services. There only an informal agreement between the County and SEPTA management that the former would not object if hte latter made a de facto decision to keep one line running and "temporarily" suspended the other.

The West Chester Branch west of Elwyn was dark and single-tracked, governed by timetable and train order. It had the oldest, lightest, and shortest cropped rail presently in service which was a perpetual headache to keep in aligned. Train service had just been restored to West Chester after an intensive period of tie and resurfacing work but, after a few weeks, there were signs that the track work was already starting to unravel. That would reduce MAS from 60 to 30 mph, extending travel time to Philadelphia to about 85 minutes and increasing peak period headways to over an hour.

Keeping the Route R3 service to West Chester would have required a massive infusion of capital dollars that neither SEPTA nor the County had on hand. Remember that every available capital resource in those days was focused on repairing 20-some condemned bridges on the much more critical former Reading trunk in Philadelphia).

At the same time, the new Route R5 service west of Paoli was threatened. Service was extended using PennDOT highway funds to mitigate traffic during the Schuylkill Expressway reconstruction project, but the project was over along with the special funding. RIdership had grown from zero to about 1200 passengers on the extension and continued to grow even after the expressway reopened. In contrast, ridership west of Elwyn was less than 100 (the number "92" sticks in my head), almost all of them to/from West Chester Borough. A quick survey conducted one morning at Exton indicated that twice that number of West Chester residents were already using the new service at that station.

Route R5 uses Amtrak-maintained infrastructure and therefore required no immediate capital investment. The county and state operating subsidies that went towards carrying a diminishing number of people on the West Chester Branch was quietly redirected to maintaining service on a new and growing service to Downingtown (now Thorndale) that also served the Central Chester County market. That seemed a good decision for the times.

trhickey wrote:Keeping the Route R3 service to West Chester would have required a massive infusion of capital dollars that neither SEPTA nor the County had on hand. Remember that every available capital resource in those days was focused on repairing 20-some condemned bridges on the much more critical former Reading trunk in Philadelphia).

And the Frankford El. (hi, Tom)

Train service to West Chester always suffered from the existance of service through 69th Street along West Chester Pike even though that service required a long trip over the MFSE going back to the West Chester Trolley Days. While the Red Arrow was dceciding to bustitute the trolley because of the impending widening of WC Pike AND the fact that the line had more traffic than it could handle on the single track line between Westgate Hills and West Chester, the PRR was struggling to fill even one of the two MP 54 cars in the usual consist it ran between Media and West Chester on each trip. In retrospect, I'm a little surprised that the Media- West Chester portion lasted as long as it did, though it was very convenient for me when I lived in Yeadon and used the train to travel to the then West Chester State College.

When was it last called "West Chester State College"? The university has 14,000 students now. That alone should catch Septa's attention, not to mention all of the other development downtown. I have been hearing about bringing the R3 back to West Chester for almost 10 years now! and nothing! Very disappointing... If we were an Asian or European country it would be done by now.

ajm8510 wrote:When was it last called "West Chester State College"?

The 1980's

Before that it was West Chester State Teacher's College.
Before that is the State Normal School at West Chester...............

In the 1980's the Commonwealth of Penna made Universities out of all the colleges that were State Colleges ( Indiana University of Pennsylvania had become a University in the 1960's) including Cheyney University ( formerly Cheyney State College) which is also located on the abandoned Media-West Chester portion of what was the R-3. This was the result of the expansion of all 14 schools from being teachers colleges to full universities.

you guys crack me up being your to much of rail buffs. Once service is gone from a line, IT DON'T RETURN. If that were the case, service would've been returned from Manyunk to Norristown on the PRR Line in the 70's after it was suspened in '60 and service would've resumed going to Pottsville, Bethlehem and Newtown. The best pipe dream I heard was SEPTA wanting to start service on the Stoney Creek Branch from Lansdale to Norristown which I litterally laughed in the guy's face. First I explained in Bush's recession , and Tom Corbett as Govenor, where's SEPTA coming up with money to put up catenaries, and wire because SEPTA don't know how to run revenue Passenger Train Service Diesel Trains. Then knowing the area as I do, I asked this stary eyed dreamer how much demand is there for stations to be built at say, crossings at Hancock St in Lansdale, Rt 73 in Whitpain Twp , Township Line Road . So you guys need to wake up, smell the coffee and live with the fact that the only passenger service the West Chester Branh will see is by those weekend warriors on the WCRR

REB 13 wrote:you guys crack me up being your to much of rail buffs.

You do know what board you're posting on, yes?

Quinn wrote:

REB 13 wrote:you guys crack me up being your to much of rail buffs.

You do know what board you're posting on, yes?

Quinn, yes I most certainly do my friend. I'm trying to explain, and explain in deatail that once service is gone, as with the Bethlehem runs, Newtown or Pottsville, service don't come back

Why is the SEPTA mindset that cut service does not ever return? The rest of the NEC railroads seem to be all about restoring cut service:

VRE: All service (1993)
MARC: Frederick Branch (2001)
NJT: Atlantic City Line (1989), Lackawanna Cutoff (2100 (est.))
MTA/ConnDOT: Upper Harlem Line (2000), Shore Line East (1990, 1996)
MBTA: Haverhill (1979), Fairmount (1979), Fitchburg (1980), Providence (1988), Forge Park (1988), Worcester (1994), Old Colony Lines (1997), Newburyport (1998), Greenbush (2007), Wickford (2012), Wachusett (2014 (est.))

While those are admittedly different circumstances on many cases - several of the MBTA lines were mitigation for the Big Dig - it forms a stark contrast to SEPTA which hasn't done anything since the Airport Line. Is the additional expense of electrifying lines the primary reason that SEPTA doesn't restore cut service, or are there other reasons?