Bethlehem casino can ressurect the Beth Branch

If a large casino is put in Bethlehem Steel, could this be a good enough reason to ressurect the Reading's Bethlehem Branch, or is the branch gone for good?

I would be not.

Anyone with access to the Bethlehem Branch probably already drives, and would be willing to drive to gamble. Anyone who needs public transit to gamble would probably go to one of the Philly casinos or Philadelphia Park.

carajul wrote:If a large casino is put in Bethlehem Steel, could this be a good enough reason to ressurect the Reading's Bethlehem Branch, or is the branch gone for good?

AlexC wrote:I would be not.

Anyone with access to the Bethlehem Branch probably already drives, and would be willing to drive to gamble. Anyone who needs public transit to gamble would probably go to one of the Philly casinos or Philadelphia Park.

Hello, carajul and AlexC. Unfortunately, I must agree with Alex to a large extent. I can't imagine that such a project *by itself* would be enough to make rail restoration practical. Of course it's desirable (hey, that's why we post here!). There are signifigant obstacles to this, political and otherwise.

It's been quite a while since I posted more than just a "hey, I'm still breathing!" message, so I'm gonna go into detail while I have this infrequent chance.

Down here in SEPTA Land; where official logic moves at right angles to reality and the inmates run the asylum ; it's a large enough challenge for Bucks and Montgomery Counties to create their new commuter rail entity that's projected to actually run the future trains to Quakertown. Then they have to figure out how much involvement SEPTA is going to have (if any!) in hosting the new trains over SEPTA lines. If the Qtown trains are merely a Lansdale-Qtown shuttle, with a change required to SEPTA R5 electric trains for getting to Center City, that's one plan. Another is running over the Stony Creek Branch to Norristown (presently a 10-20MPH line loaded with curves) , east on the R6 to Ivy Ridge, somehow getting uphill to join with the old PRR alignment, across the Schuylkill on the decrepit PRR bridge & down the R6 Cynwyd line, and into 30th St (upper level [SEPTA], or lower level [Amtrak]?) via the R5 Malvern line. Much more costly because of what has to be rebuilt and connected in this plan.

The reason why I mention all this operational nitpicking is because it has a direct bearing on the final price-tag of getting a service running, and the number of entities which need to kick in their share. Some are going to be harder than others to obtain funding from. The shuttle plan is relatively quick and cheap, but not optimal from a passenger standpoint (a two-seat ride). Fighting for a through ride to Center City; either via the connect-the-dots route I described or south along the existing R5 electric line; will take a lot of political will to the fight the battles necessary to get the money. It also means dealing on a much more involved basis with SEPTA, which I wouldn't even wish on my worst enemy.

Going north of the Bucks County line to the ultimate destination of Bethlehem represents a total reversal of over a quarter-century of physical, political, and bureaucratic entropy that makes returning to Quakertown look "simple". It means that you must get Lehigh and Northampton Counties on-board with this initiative, and in the past that was like getting blood from a stone. Their disinterest in funding a fair share of the original service's costs is one of the factors which helped kill it off in 1981.

If the political situation had been different back then, and if those counties could have been convinced that SEPTA would truly improve service if serious cash was forthcoming on a permanent basis, it would have been fifty times easier to upgrade and improve what already existed. Today, in a different century, it is depressingly akin to Indiana Jones hacking thru the jungle in order to find some lost temple. With much greater suburban development and clogged rush-hour highway driving that didn't exist up there 26 years ago, it might be different this time around. Might. I see that there is increasing grass-roots support for such train service in the Lehigh Valley. I just don't know if it will be enough. Time will tell. Their highways are apt to get worse before they get better...

Please don't think I'm going out of my way to ruin your idea to serve the casino in Bethlehem by rail from Philly. I *like* your idea! But catering to that one destination isn't enough by itself to get the needed political capital spent that would release enough $$ to rebuild that far. I don't think that most folks truly understand the scope and extent of the work which has to be done to make it a reality. I don't blame them for it.

Folks like myself and the wonderful JimE have not been able to make field observations and analyse data sets the way that we used to do on this forum. Real-life obligations have the two of us mostly painted into our respective corners. I miss being able to give this subject as much thought as I used to. Paradoxically, one of the biggest reasons why I can't do so is because I am working on a separate but parallel project that also concerns the Bethlehem Branch (more details another time).

Guys, for continuity's sake I should cross-post your messages and this reply to the main Bethlehem Branch thread. Our community discussion of the PA Forum's #1 topic has been slowly sinking farther down the forum page. Time to breathe bit more life into it.