Railroad Forums 

  • December 19 Schedule Changes

  • Discussion relating to Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (Philadelphia Metro Area). Official web site can be found here: www.septa.com. Also including discussion related to the PATCO Speedline rapid transit operated by Delaware River Port Authority. Official web site can be found here: http://www.ridepatco.org/.
Discussion relating to Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (Philadelphia Metro Area). Official web site can be found here: www.septa.com. Also including discussion related to the PATCO Speedline rapid transit operated by Delaware River Port Authority. Official web site can be found here: http://www.ridepatco.org/.

Moderator: AlexC

 #1586426  by rcthompson04
 
SEPTA is adding some more service back starting September 19.

Some big changes include:
1. Paoli-Thorndale - Wayne expresses added in morning and evening. Additional service added in the morning and evening as well. Getting closer to pre-COVID morning and evening schedule.
2. Lansdale-Doylestown - Two inbound morning trips added from Lansdale, two outbound evening trips added to Lansdale, and an evening reverse from Lansdale.
3. Manayunk/Norristown Line - One inbound peak, two outbound morning reverse peak, and one inbound reverse evening peak added.
4. Media-Elwyn - Hourly service off peak restored, morning/evening express added with some additional reverse rushhour service.
5. Trenton / West Trenton - Additional rush hour express each way added on both lines.
6. Warminster - Glenside to Center City reverse trains added during rushhour.
7. Chestnut Hill West - Hourly off peak restored, weekend service restored to two hour headways, additional rushhour roundtrips added.
8. Chestnut Hill East - 6 offpeak midday trips restored.
9 . Cynwyd - Midday roundtrip restored.
10. Fox Chase - Two inbound trains added in evening.

http://septa.org/schedules/upcoming-rail.html

Still some holes in the schedule, but this is starting to look a little closer to the pre-Covid world.

When did SEPTA stop running the expresses to and from Wayne? This is a bit of a throwback in lieu of the Great Valley Flyer.
 #1586431  by MACTRAXX
 
RCT: Good news about SEPTA RRD service restoration and increases.
All you need is a set of SEPTA RRD timetables from 2018-2019 to see what ran before "The Problem"...
At least SEPTA never stopped printing revised timetables as needed as the LIRR and MNCR have.
With the effective date of December 19 the idea is for these additional trains to be in service in time
for the Christmas/New Year's Holiday week period with the potential of heavier travel on RRD.
What I do with a schedule change such as this one is to download all of the new schedules until
I obtain copies of the actual printed timetables...MACTRAXX
 #1588105  by ryan92084
 
Not really worth its own thread so I'll put this here. Word is free parking is extended again with the end of July 2022 as the new date but nothing official yet
 #1588134  by MACTRAXX
 
RCT: The Axios page showed nothing that you mentioned already concerning the 12/19/2021 schedule changes.
They referred to the SEPTA website for further information that you already posted along with the link...
The photo they used was of a MFSE train on the 69th Street loop tracks - and not of a correct RRD train.
That was basically just clickbait...Let's see how SEPTA RRD handles the latest version of "The Problem"
(my term for the ongoing pandemic) going onward into 2022...

Ryan: Extending free parking for the next six months is a good move by SEPTA to help further restore
RRD ridership...MACTRAXX
 #1588146  by rcthompson04
 
It will be interesting to see when the crew issues the airlines and now Amtrak are having hit SEPTA. I have been watching the last few days and there haven't really been many cancelled trains.
 #1588147  by eolesen
 
rcthompson04 wrote:It will be interesting to see when the crew issues the airlines and now Amtrak are having hit SEPTA. I have been watching the last few days and there haven't really been many cancelled trains.
Are the SEPTA crews testing before every operational day like flight attendants are? We're picking up a lot of asymptomatic cases with the requirements for flight attendants to test prior to showing up at the airport.

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

 #1588190  by CNJGeep
 
rcthompson04 wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 1:05 pm It will be interesting to see when the crew issues the airlines and now Amtrak are having hit SEPTA. I have been watching the last few days and there haven't really been many cancelled trains.
They're running whoever is left on the extra board ragged and pulling all the yard and protect crews out on the road. Many people on the extra board are working twice in one day, i.e. working 4A-2P, then coming back out and working 11P-9A.
eolesen wrote:Are the SEPTA crews testing before every operational day like flight attendants are?
No.
 #1588215  by Maverickstation1
 
Has SEPTA announced a start date for service to and from the new Wawa/Middletown station ?
The only official statements that I could find kept saying "late 2021", well today is about as late in 2021 as you can get.
Ken
 #1588225  by rcthompson04
 
Maverickstation1 wrote: Fri Dec 31, 2021 10:00 am Has SEPTA announced a start date for service to and from the new Wawa/Middletown station ?
The only official statements that I could find kept saying "late 2021", well today is about as late in 2021 as you can get.
Ken
Next spring (aka Spring 2022) was the last thing I saw:

https://middletowndelcopa.gov/vertical/ ... 0.2021.pdf
 #1588261  by WashingtonPark
 
CNJGeep wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 8:25 pm
rcthompson04 wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 1:05 pm It will be interesting to see when the crew issues the airlines and now Amtrak are having hit SEPTA. I have been watching the last few days and there haven't really been many cancelled trains.
They're running whoever is left on the extra board ragged and pulling all the yard and protect crews out on the road. Many people on the extra board are working twice in one day, i.e. working 4A-2P, then coming back out and working 11P-9A.
Septa lets you turn on 9 hours? At Patco it had to be 10 and they were very strict about it. It was so they could line up with Federal laws. Also no more than 14 hours in one 24 time period which is less than the 15 you'd be working there. Any limit for consecutive hours worked?
 #1588281  by nomis
 
HOS for Passenger railroads let’s you turn in 8 hours, as long as you don’t have deadhead to deal with. .
 #1588335  by WashingtonPark
 
nomis wrote: Fri Dec 31, 2021 7:24 pm HOS for Passenger railroads let’s you turn in 8 hours, as long as you don’t have deadhead to deal with. .
I should have mentioned that PATCO wanted nothing to do with the FRA and looked to the FTC for guidance which also put a 60 hour per week limit on our work. I'm guessing SEPTA is certainly under FRA rules.
 #1588412  by ExCon90
 
Correct -- two separate worlds. SEPTA shares its tracks with freight trains and Amtrak tracks with its own trains; PATCO is an island, "intire of it selfe," with no interlining with freight or passenger railroads, once known as "steam railroads." In 1983, when SEPTA was prohibited by law from contracting with Conrail for its rail services, it went through some creative linguistic contortions (such as "rapid transit" or some such instead of "rail" to get out from under the Railway Labor Act on the pretext of nobody here but us trolley drivers), but to no avail. PATCO, on the other hand, is clearly a heavy-rail transit line, on the ground that the former P-RSL rail service had been definitively abandoned before PATCO began operations.
 #1595410  by rcthompson04
 
I have heard rumors a few times the last two weeks that a schedule change / expansion of service is planned for June 2022. Ridership is definitely picking up, but I doubt the crews exist for more runs.