Rail-road tracks under Pennsylvania ave.

Its a shame that this ROW along with the whole Reading Terminal viaduct has been let to decay and rot.

To some extent, its ashame this was never considered as an alternative to the CCCT. The CCCT is still a godsend, but keeping this connection and the old viaduct open would have had its uses today had the Reading System not been butchered the way it has been. The Fairmount area has no rail transit at the moment and this would have at least provided something.

Urban D Kaye wrote:
New construction between 19th and 20th ... has resulted in a section of the trench wall being removed.

Hard to get a view, because the former parking lot used by the gym and video store is now occupied by the construction company's office trailer.

But you can see the equipment reasonably well from the bridge...



Hal

Nice shootin, Hal. Good photo. So from the 19th Street side you can see what the've done to the structure. Would love to get in there and sift for artifacts, but that's a no-no.

One thing about Philly...here we have a 322-year-old city, with history literally below our feet, yet archaeologists or anthropologists are rarely (if ever) allowed a look at an excavation of this size. I know, I know...construction jobs have budgets and timetables, and what if scientists or historians actually found something of value?...that could delay the project for months. Then the guys in the see-thru socks get unhapy, and the developer gets unhappy, and Mrs Van Drizzleschitz and her bichon frise get unhappy.

One exception: The excavation for the Regional Rail tunnel and ramp connecting Market East Station with the Reading's elevated main was investigated and yielded many artifacts dating to the early 1700s.

ewonder wrote:Since SEPTA does not have plans for this ROW maybe it would interest PATCO.

Even if seemingly "pie in the skyish", extending the PATCO line, north, (with a station at Market or JFK) and linking with the abandoned ROW to the ART Museum area seems logical.

I want to revive the discussion about the Pennsylvania Avenue Subway, but with a different idea for re-use.

Use the subway tracks to solve the Schuylkill River Park conflict-

CSX (claims) it has no space to park assembled trains in eastside yard, so it parks trains for hours, days or a week on tracks along the Schuylkill- which blocks access to the City of Philadelphia's popular new riverside park.

http://freetheriverpark.org/

But,, if CSX trains go right past an unused 6 track tunnel that's 2/3 of a mile long, THAT seems like a perfect place to park trains. The tunnel was specificially built to separated foot and car traffic from train traffic, so it would seem to be a perfect all weather storage or mini switching yard.



FYI-
There's a copy of the 1900 American Society of Civil Engineers paper about the construction of that tunnel at

http://www.sewerhistory.org/grfx/wh_region/us_penn.htm


So, I guess this makes too much sense

Philly would get access to the new Park,

CSX would get additional storage area

SEPTA or Philly (whomever owns the tracks) would get the tracks in the tunnel re-habbed so that someday when there IS a commuter use the rails will be there. Heck the tunnel is 6 tracks wide, CSX could use 6 tracks until SEPTA comes up with a use, then SEPTA gets 2 tracks and CSX uses 4 tracks.


Hal

Good thinking, Hal. Thanks for the link to the engineering docs - a neighbor who lived across the street when I was growing up worked for the PRR and then for Amtrak, in the MOW department. He had big prints of the first two views on that website framed and hanging in his living room. Now he's retired and lives in Maine, but I'm sure he still has them. I used to look at them all the time as a kid without realizing exactly where the location was.

2/3 of a mile might be a little short for entire train storage - how far east is the ROW intact enough for more tracks?

RDGAndrew wrote:Good thinking, Hal. Thanks for the link to the engineering docs - a neighbor who lived across the street when I was growing up worked for the PRR and then for Amtrak, in the MOW department. He had big prints of the first two views on that website framed and hanging in his living room. Now he's retired and lives in Maine, but I'm sure he still has them. I used to look at them all the time as a kid without realizing exactly where the location was.

2/3 of a mile might be a little short for entire train storage - how far east is the ROW intact enough for more tracks?

Heading east?
I guess another 2 miles for a total of 3 miles is possible for a single track.

Once you exit the tunnel the right of way continues in a cut at least out to Broad Street then it rises up and curves north to meet the Reading Viaduct which continues north along 8th to around Girard Ave. The Reading Viaduct would need lots of work to be usable..

Its also a no-no to park a train on a hill, which is what you'd have with one end on an elevated viaduct and the other end in a excavated tunnel.

The right of way in the cut between 21st and 12th is being encroached upon- it's used for parking etc, but I've never walked through it to see whether there are permanant blockages like building foundations...

HEADING WEST-
There's about 1/3 mile from the junction near 31st and Girard to the end of the tunnel, so the ROW and tunnel shoudl have space for 6 sidings 1 mile long.

For comparison, it's about 1 mile from Race Street to South Street.

There was a "day in the life of a container" story about the CSX intermodal yard- I think that mentioned that they did have several trains in the 5,000 foot range.

The general idea is that CSX wants somewhere to store trains for several days or even upto a week- so with 6 tracks at a mile each, even with partial dissasembly, you'd have something workable.

Also, I was just bike riding beside Norfolk Southern's East Allentown Yard-
they've got the EXACT same situation as CSX, at Allentown, you also have people driving cars over an un-signalled, un-gated crossing into Allentown's "Lehigh Canal Park" - and they don't seem to have a problem.



One other idea-
The Norfolk Southern operation in Allentown has a "hump yard"

- a gravity powered switch yard where rail cars roll downhill and are sorted to different several sidings-

I wonder if the combination of an elevated Reading Viaduct and an excavated 6 track wide tunnel might be an advantage for CSX?
Perhaps CSX could use the downhilll gradients of the Pennsylvania Ave Tunnel or City Branch cut for something similar- dis-assemble the trains for storeage, then re-assemble them by gravity?

Hal

I wonder who owns the viaduct now. IT would be nice to see it used for something since no one is interested in tearing it down. Its such a tease to see it there, catenary and all, doing absolutely nothing. I'd be willing to bet someone else owns some of the ROW between 13th St and 16th St, otherwise they wouldn't have built stuff there, plus past Broad & 13th St the ROW is pretty close to a building, I don't know if the owner has any say over trains rolling by their building again or not.

As nice as an idea this is, I doubt CSX would be interested in dumping money to reactivate a decades long unused ROW, especially with all the legalities involved.

From what I understand, the "catenary" (or what's left of it) up on the viaduct is still energized and provides the feed for the main line north of the Girard Avenue phase break, as well as backup power for the tunnel. I also recall, a few years ago, the electrocution of a scavenger trying to steal the copper catenary wires, not realizing they were still powered. I would guess that Septa still owns what's left of the viaduct.