BuddCarToBethlehem wrote:DeltaV wrote:Why not further towards Lansdale?
You can still see some "H" poles on the west side of the Turnpike (driving southbound on I-476 makes it easier to see the poles). I believe that the Stoney Brook branch was electried at one time from Lansdale to Norristown all the way to the mainline to Philadelphia. Conrail ceased using electric engines not to long after their formation. The wires came down sometime in the 80's or early '90's. Ironically, the Reading never ran passenger service along that route. On possible explination was that the Lehigh Valley Transit's Liberty Bell route went from Lansdale (practically across the street from the Reading station) to Norristown and on to 69th St. Terminal in Upper Darby. Also until the '50's the Reading ran passenger trains from Allentown to Philadelphia through Norristown via the Perkiomen branch. However, the Reading did have a some freight traffic on the Stoney Creek branch, but I don't know whether or not they use electric engines much.
That appears to be power utility overbuild, using the ROW to transmit commercial power. I'm not aware of the Reading having electrified the Stoney Creek Branch. The overbuild extends from a stub track that begins in a substation along the NE Extension here:
http://www.bing.com/maps/explore/#/so2wbdbz9cx7k075
continuing up to the NE to near Moyer Blvd, where the power lines divert off of the railroad ROW:
http://www.bing.com/maps/explore/#/8gnwt9mbco0hk6l1
Conrail's retirement of the ex-PRR/PC GG-1, E-44 and any other electric engines it inherited did indeed lead to the catenary coming down in the 80s along a lot of miles of track, including the High Line through Philly and down to Greenwich Yard, the Trenton Cutoff, the (abandoned) Philadelphia & Thorndale and Atglen & Susquehanna, the Columbia Branch, Enola Yard and its approaches as well as other non-Amtrak lines around Harrisburg, the Jamesburg Branch, and other freight-only lines in the DC, Wilmington and NYC areas, but at least for the most part, these were ex-PRR lines. Some of these, notably the A&S, part of the Trenton Cutoff, the former PRR Norristown line, SEPTA's Cynwyd line and the former PRR main line through West Philly, still retain sometimes massive overbuilds for Amtrak power submission, and the ex-PRR main between Paoli and Villanova contain remnants of the original 1915 electrification's transmission lines separate from the catenary that are now used by PECO (this can be easily seen to join the main grid at Daylesford station -
http://g.co/maps/jz8yq <- Google Street View).