nittany4 wrote:Will it ever be used again for RR use?
seems a shame if it isn't, given it's proximity to an active line that it could be incorporated into.
http://www.svmetro.com/svm/history/img/ ... top-1l.jpg
At this point it all depends on how the next few years go for SEPTA and their management. Who knows, maybe if we get dedicated funding SEPTA will look more kindly upon service expansions and we'll actually see them try to get federal money for the projects we've all been chomping at the bit for.
then again, also a shame
trolley bus wires with diesel buses underneath them
On the 59, 66, and 75 that
should be history by some time in 2007. Hopefully we'll get some
E40LFs like Vancouver got and all will be well with the ETB system for the next 20 to 30 years. It'd be nice if the 29 and 79 would return, and it'd be excellent if SEPTA would come to their senses and expand the ETB system to encompass more low headway routes, such as (IMHO) the 17, but I'm by no means holding my breath.
unused city subway
Unused by who? CSX certainly gets use out of the City Subway from 27th St to just north of the Art Musuem. One could even argue that GlaxoSmithKline(?), the Board of Education, Philly PD, and the Whole Foods grocery store at 21nd and Pennsylvania are 'using' the City Subway, even if it's in a manner most on this board would find detestible. Yeah, it'd be nice to have an LRV down there, such a line could be a tremendous asset to both the Musuem row and perhaps even the beleagured neighborhood of East Falls, but I'd definitely not rank it a top priority.
junctions to a boulevard subway that will never be built
What junctions are these? The tail tracks north of Erie? As I understand it it is highly debatable whether these tunnels were intended as turnarounds or extensions for future trackways. For one thing it's interesting that the 'extension' is above the active trunk line. Back in the days of cut and cover this may have been simpler to get a Roosevelt Blvd Subway out of the trunk, but today it makes them of only limited utility. Admittedly today the NETIS plan sounds like it was going to take the trunk line and reroute it through the tail tracks allowing the RBS tracks to take the current trunk and duck over to the Blvd. I would think if back in the 1920s or 30s the tail tracks at Erie were truely meant for extension to the Blvd they would have been built to the point where they curve east to the Blvd rather than running straight and terminating.
abandoned service to west chester
The replacement of that service is, like all rail service in this area, just a matter of political will and money. Really we just need to counter the bullshit line that some folks (including SEPTA) seem to think the R5 Exton park and ride is "close enough" to West Chester to adaquately substitute for the curtailed R3 West Chester service. It's clear from the ridership on the Rt104 bus that this is not the case and that a park and ride 5 miles up the road is no substitute for direct rail service to the town center, especially a college town such as West Chester. It'd probably be a rather reasonable service return once the fat SEPTA would undoubtedly try to get away with was trimmed off. Even with the bridge at Wawa I have to wonder if we'd even break 350 million dollars.
[/quote]abandoned service to newtown[/quote]
Same story, money and politics. Bribe, trick, or sue the rich folks in Bryn Athryn into keeping quiet about bringing the line back and you're probably pretty close to done. At that point all you need to do is clear brush, dig up the old tracks and ballast, re-lay the subroadbed, lay the tracks, put up new signals, string some catenary and you're done. I wonder if the whole project would even cost 250 million dollars not including rolling stock costs.
trenton cutoff/cross county
There was once a quite lively discussion of the merits and problems with this proposed route. With the seeming loss of interest in the route on SEPTA's part the discussion here similarly died off. I still feel it's potentially a good idea, since NYC, King of Prussia and the Rt30 corridor are all important employment centers in this area with many commuters coming from Bucks, Montgomery, and Chester counties. A Cross County Metro would potentially provide an alternative to an increasingly crowded PA Turnpike. Of course, as with the City Subway branch LRT it's something that'd be nice to have, but I'd rather see rail service to Pottstown, West Chester, Newtown, or the Blvd Subway first.
abandoned service to bethlehem
abandoned service to reading (that will cost BILLIONS to restore)
First off don't believe SEPTA's bullshit. The Schuylkill Valley Metro plan was flawwed from the very beginning when DVRPC laid it out in 1994 as Light Rail from Philadelphia to Oaks. The 2.2 billion dollar figure for the Schuylkill Valley Metro includes the rather considerable sum of money to move a majority of Norfolk Southern traffic off the Reading line and place it on a refurbished, currently abandoned parallel routing. I've never seen a specific figure for that portion of the project, but I recently talked to an engineer who worked on the EIS and he said it was nearly half of the cost. SEPTA's plans to run EMUs on a 30 minute headway to Reading always was an insane plan not justified by their (highly optimistic) ridership predictions. That's not to say that we don't need service to Reading, but doing so for 2.2 billion dollars and shelling out money to maintain the same headway all day which some existing regional rail lines only see at peak hours is ridiculous. Unfortunately because of SEPTA's flawwed planning we're likely not going to get an electric system to Reading, let alone Pottstown.
Because we're stuck with diesel operation the Manayunk Schuylkill River bridge becomes even more important. By connecting the Ivy Ridge branch to the Norristown line we can get diesel trains from Reading to 30th St Lower Level. The direct extension of that then leads to the use of the Stony Creek Branch to get trains bound for Bethlehem Quakertown to the same terminal. With this arrangement electrification can be extended incrementally as traffic warrants and we don't need any complicated dual mode arrangements to get passengers into Center City.
