Quakertown Branch and Suburbanites Showdown

Just saw this article posted on DVARP's website. Apparantly, East Penn Railway is doing well as far as freight traffic is concerned. I did not know the entire line N. of Lansdale was dormant after SEPTA stopped running their RDC's in 1981.

Now all the suburbanites who live near the line are complaining about the noise of the trains because they can't hear the TV when trains go by.
I thought New Jersians were bad but this takes the cake. Are these people going to fight the county and SEPTA when someone does get serious about bringing rail service back?

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/ ... 21686.html

Yes, the way the River Line brought out NIMBYs is a good preview, except that on this side of the Delaware it'll probably be worse 'cause SEPTA does such a crummy job of communicating with residents who will be affected by new service. Instead of showing how everyone can work together and that transit will bring community benefits (see Narberth, Glenside, Media, Drexel Hill etc.) they simply announce the changes and wait for reactions.

When the proposed P&W routings were made public about 5 years ago, people in the Valley Forge Towers didn't find out that the line was to go behind their building until just a couple of days before the hearing. I attended the meeting and by that point the misconceptions were already in place. If you believed some of the comments, SEPTA was planning to run Big Boys and Jawn Henrys on five minute headways. The reasoning seemed to be "a train is a train, so N-5 = RRD = Broadway Limited = 100-car coal drag" - right?

Same ol' Nimby problem...you buy a house in a flood plane and are shocked when it floods... you buy a house near a RR track and are shocked to hear trains.

The Nimby conundrum..."I wanted to live in a theme park, and I woke up in the real world."

Well, to Ms. Nimby, I say: Get used to it, honey. You live 45 minutes from Philly and 90 minutes from New York. You want a "slice of rural heaven"... try North Dakota. As for train frequency, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. is not an unreasonable schedule. Sorry it disrupts your TV viewing...but hey, in "rural heaven," there are no TVs. And if you wanna sell, I'll buy the place...for 65 cents on the dollar.

-Urban

AMEN!

It'd too bad that the East Penn Rwy is taking all those trucks off of the Bethlehem Pike (309) and the other hiways in the area. Maybe those Nimby's would rather sit behind those smokin' diesels at a traffic light, rather then a little noise later.

I feel sorry for places above Norristown for the fact that they might not get rail service for a while.

njt/mnrrbuff wrote:I feel sorry for places above Norristown for the fact that they might not get rail service...

They had it for decades - LVT to Allentown plus RDG to Bethlehem, Pottstown, Reading and beyond were the largest and longest-surviving lines. Plus, there were many smaller trolley lines that sprang up in the first 3rd of the last century, though most couldn't be considered major carriers and went out of business relatively quickly.

...for a while.

At the current rate of non-progress, that "while" may also be measured in decades.

jfrey40535 wrote:Just saw this article posted on DVARP's website. Apparantly, East Penn Railway is doing well as far as freight traffic is concerned. I did not know the entire line N. of Lansdale was dormant after SEPTA stopped running their RDC's in 1981.

Conrail continued to run through freight service to Bethlehem until 1984 or so. The line was maintianed in relatively good condition, including the signal system, up to that time. The Bethlehem branch was a bit of a "roller coaster" and trains were eventually diverted to the flatter route through Reading and Allentown. Once the through traffic disappeared, Conrail continued to operate local freight service only as far as Quakertown, much the same as it does today under EPRY. To the best of my knowledge, this portion of the line has never been totally dormant.

As is usual in today's sensationalistic press, there were several inaccuracies in the article, not to mention blatant trespassing by the NIMBY's who are so concerned about their kids getting hit by a train screaming along at 10 mph. They set a fine example for the kids by walking down the middle of the ROW and standing directly behind a hopper car on the track. They're also too blind to realize that eliminating 30 trucks a day hurtling down 309 at 55 mph is a GOOD thing.

Very good point. Firstly, the press never does seem to be on our side. I wonder if EPRY has any complaints from the NIMBY's. This is where the RR's need a lobby and a PR dept.

It would be nice, although they shouldn't have to, to post a sign or something at a grade crossing somewhere that says "We kept X number of trucks off your streets this year" or anything along those lines.

They mentality is insane. I've been living in Port Richmond for 5 years now, 2 blocks from I-95. Maybe I should go down to City Hall and demand that they silence that infernal beast because I can't hear worms burrowing in the dirt in my garden! How dare they!

Happily, all the letters to the editor of the Intelligencer pretty much made the points we all agree with here. There were people who wrote about what a bad example it was to show the homeowners standing "in the gauge of the track", how two or three short'n'slow freight moves between 8am and 6pm is a far cry from the ore trains of 25 years ago, and how people who move next to a farm shouldn't be surprised when it smells like a barnyard. The editorial made essentially the same points, also pointing out the economic benefits of the industries being served by the EPRY. My own (unpublished) letter also included the URL and a brief description for Operation Lifesaver, which I suggested the concerned homeowners check out as a potential presentation at a local school instead of trespassing on the tracks for a photo op.

Happily, all the letters to the editor of the Intelligencer pretty much made the points we all agree with here. There were people who wrote about what a bad example it was to show the homeowners standing "in the gauge of the track", how two or three short'n'slow freight moves between 8am and 6pm is a far cry from the ore trains of 25 years ago, and how people who move next to a farm shouldn't be surprised when it smells like a barnyard. The editorial made essentially the same points, also pointing out the economic benefits of the industries being served by the EPRY. My own (unpublished) letter also included the URL and a brief description for Operation Lifesaver, which I suggested the concerned homeowners check out as a potential presentation at a local school instead of trespassing on the tracks for a photo op.