69th street terminal

What do people think about the current 69th street terminal situation? Anything that you want inproved?
Anything you like about it?
TD

My biggest complaint is that the no-smoking rule is not enforced. I regularly see shop keepers move out into the hallways to smoke while the cops stand just feet away.

The building also is very dingy; some better lighting in the corridors would be nice.

Bob

There are some nice photos in Ron DeGraw's books showing the station as it was in the 40s and 50s. There were stores all over and it was really bustling. I remember my parents taking me on the trolley with the terminal as our shopping destination, sorta like "going to the mall" today.

I don't know if it was the shutdown or if rents increased, but after the renovations, a lot of the store spaces which had had tenants became vacant.

FWIW, I like the pizza shop there. Good Pie considering.

i would like to see a nice public display of how 69th street looked in the past.

I know when my dad joined the marines in the late 50's, the recruiting station was in an office on the balcony. Be neat to see pics of that.

I would like to see the bags of trash that are under the steps to the P&W from bus road leading to the South terminal (where the 65 stops) picked up. What a rat trap.

lefty wrote:I would like to see a nice public display of how 69th street looked in the past.

Absolutely. But my 2c is that it'll never happen. It would show just how far downhill things have gone in the SEPTA era.

Same reason you'll never see anything displaying an old P&W schedule - the Bullets easily lopped 10 minutes and more off an end-to-end run compared to the N-5s. Also the same reason SEPTA painted over the old Liberty Bell Lines signage that was found during renovations in the 80's. Why tell the riders that there was once service all the way to the Lehigh Valley? They might want it to be reinstated.

JeffK wrote:

lefty wrote:I would like to see a nice public display of how 69th street looked in the past.

Absolutely. But my 2c is that it'll never happen. It would show just how far downhill things have gone in the SEPTA era.

Same reason you'll never see anything displaying an old P&W schedule - the Bullets easily lopped 10 minutes and more off an end-to-end run compared to the N-5s.

Well you can thank SEPTA for removing the superelevation in the curves on the P&W.

ekt8750 wrote:

JeffK wrote:

lefty wrote:
Well you can thank SEPTA for removing the superelevation in the curves on the P&W.

would you please explain that? I do not understand what "superelevation in the curves" means.

Thank you.

L

Superelevation is the technical term for a banked curve- which allows a vehicle to travel at a higher speed. The extreme example of superelevation is a NASCAR track like Daytona Fl.

As to 69th street, I miss the old days, SEPTA turned it into just an end /starting point for many lines, most if not all the charachter is gone.

Anybody remember the old hot dog place that served the dogs on a folded piece of toasted white bread? My father still morns the day he found out they closed.

Oh, I forgot, I have a story about the old P&W sign that was uncovered listing the old LVT destinations. I was in the main hall waiting for a friend when I heard a couple mention, “Hey look at that, how about we just ride the train to Allentown instead of the bus.” I honestly wonder how many saw the old sign and actually thought that and even made plans

the sarge wrote:Oh, I forgot, I have a story about the old P&W sign that was uncovered listing the old LVT destinations. I was in the main hall waiting for a friend when I heard a couple mention, “Hey look at that, how about we just ride the train to Allentown instead of the bus.” I honestly wonder how many saw the old sign and actually thought that and even made plans

ROTF squared!

But seriously, I guess that was a risk, especially given how clueless some people can be, inadvertently or not.

During RailWorks I was bicycling past one of the closed R6 stations. Two people were waiting on the platform despite several Closed signs and a completely empty parking lot. " 'Scuse me - there hasn't been a train for a while. Do you know when the next one's supposed to be here?" My immediate response: "Sure. The first week in October!" (and yeah, I did explain, but only after watching their expressions...)

ekt8750 wrote:Well you can thank SEPTA for removing the superelevation in the curves on the P&W.

That, and the ATC system that's always applying the brakes whenever a car gets over 60 mph.

traindude wrote:What do people think about the current 69th street terminal situation? Anything that you want inproved?
Anything you like about it?
TD

It stinks there. The restroom in the waiting room looks like something from a third world country.

Would be nice if they turned the heat on during the winter (or closed the doors).

Its a pretty depressing environment. They could add music similar to whats done in Pittsburgh, or NYP for that matter. Crank it up and it might keep the bums out.

Do something with those digital signs in the berths at the bus terminals. Or the fact that they no longer work means they're about to hit us the taxpayers up for more money to get new ones.

The pay-leave system needs to go. Its more like "pay-never" as I've seen crowds of 5-10 people walk off the 100 without paying (108 & 113 are pretty bad too). SEPTA knows how bad the problem is but does nothing.

the sarge wrote:Superelevation is the technical term for a banked curve- which allows a vehicle to travel at a higher speed. The extreme example of superelevation is a NASCAR track like Daytona Fl.

Actually, the most extreme banking on the NASCAR circuit is Bristol - 36 degrees in the turns - Daytona is only 31. Walking across the track in Bristol is a real balancing act!

To keep it on topic for this board (if not this particular forum), the superelevation on the Amtrak main just west of the Hudson River tunnels - while nowhere near 30 degrees (!) - is enough to make walking through the aisle just a little diffficult if a train comes to a dead stop on the curve. Even sitting, your body does tend to lean.

jfrey40535 wrote: It stinks there. The restroom in the waiting room looks like something from a third world country.

Would be nice if they turned the heat on during the winter (or closed the doors).

FWIW,

It's a two way street on the bathrooms. It is simply amazing how many hundreds of people a day use that bathroom. Many of them won't flush, purposefully mess up the place, vandalize the fixtures (prior to the current prison fixtures it was far worse) etc. In short, the riders have the bathroom they deserve. Septa does clean them, though they should clean them more often- but it is difficult to do so when it is an almost constant flow of people in and out of the room.

Same with the heat. Look around at the ground level by the (iirc) North Terminal (where the 65 berths) It's cast iron baseboard now. It used to be more potent electric blower powered hydronic units but people kept urinating on them and killing the mechanism and controls. So they had to replace those units with something a bit less maintenance intensive. Again, they got the heat they deserved.

They did install several new ceiling hydronic units in the terminal over the summer. They are not all operational yet but the ones that do work nicely. And the heat is on.

L

jfrey40535 wrote:The pay-leave system needs to go. Its more like "pay-never" as I've seen crowds of 5-10 people walk off the 100 without paying (108 & 113 are pretty bad too). SEPTA knows how bad the problem is but does nothing.

I don't see how pay-enter would be any better. It's not really worth their time and falling behind schedule to throw a passenger off who walks onto the train without paying.

I think a large part of the problem is that people aren't used to it since only Victory lines have the system, and they forget they need to pay; it's probably in many cases not malicious fare evasion. Pittsburgh, which uses the pay-exit concept system-wide I've noticed doesn't have nearly the problem with it that SEPTA does. On buses, it's not difficult to prevent someone from exiting (when I've seen someone unable to pay on PAT, he rides along to either the garage or the terminal point where transit police meet the bus); on the 100, it would be a little more difficult to prevent exiting given the position of the doors, but I'm sure something could be worked out.

It really is a very good idea in a multi-zone hub/spoke system. Execution is the problem.

And alone, I wouldn't say it makes 69th Street itself better or worse.

-asg

JeffK wrote:

ekt8750 wrote:Well you can thank SEPTA for removing the superelevation in the curves on the P&W.

That, and the ATC system that's always applying the brakes whenever a car gets over 60 mph.

I dunno. I've seen the ATC running at 70MPH but operators going 55. In all honesty, the P&W's ATC IMO is the only one on the SEPTA system that actually works right.