random venting from a frustrated Philadelphia commuter....

Random thoughts from a frustrated Philadelphian:
1)Why does it take a quarter-hour to get from 48th and Baltimore to 30th and Market? Don’t believe me that it does? Get on the #34 at 6.30 and tell me what time you get to 30th.

2)Why do the trolley operators stop at every single switch before proceding through? It makes the ride worse and slows everything down.

3)why does SEPTA run trolleys on diversion during the AM rush two days in a row? why don't they increase service on the El when they do so that people don't miss their connections?

as you might be able to tell, SEPTA made me miss my keystone this morning. so I had to ride the r5. i can't say how frustrated i was having to buy a ticket from septa for the R5 because they made me miss my amtrak. which brings up a few other questions:

4) why does SEPTA schedule the R5 so that a thorndale train follows a malvern train by ten minutes, but then there is a gap of 30 minutes from the previous train so that I can cool my heels a little longer after missing my Amtrak connection?

5) since septa stations are so close, would it speed up the schedules at all to have the trains decellerate at a higher rate and closer to the stations, more akin to the subways? it seems that they could operate at higher speeds on the keystone line...

At leat I'm not the only frustrated trolley rider out here....jsc I feel your pain. It takes me 40 minutes to get from Richmond-Allegheny tot 12th-Market, and that's on a good day.

I can tell you why....because SEPTA stops at every corner, rock and piece of dirt along the way. Schedules are padded out the wazoo.

I'm still trying to figure out the switch thing too. I think it has something to do with the switch being V-tagged or not. If you approach it under load it throws the switch or something.

And with the exception of the Rt 100, I think every rail op that SEPTA has was designed for slugs. They all have such annoying speed issues, which is why I now question how practical rail is at all anymore. When I see SEPTA buses beating the train (on its own ROW mind you) from point A to B I have to ask myself if this is really a good way to travel.

jsc wrote:Random thoughts from a frustrated Philadelphian:
)Why do the trolley operators stop at every single switch before proceding through? It makes the ride worse and slows everything down.

Because some operators don't pay attention and wrong routes/split switches/derailments ensue.

4) why does SEPTA schedule the R5 so that a thorndale train follows a malvern train by ten minutes, but then there is a gap of 30 minutes from the previous train so that I can cool my heels a little longer after missing my Amtrak connection?

I haven't looked at the specific instance you cite, but this kind of "fleeting" is routine in commuter railroading. It's done this way to maximize schedule reliability. The local train takes longer than the express to cover the inner portion of the line, so if you were to start them on more even intervals, there'd be a greater chance that a following express would catch up to the preceding local, and have to wait for it to clear.

There's also the possibility that they had to slot an Amtrak train or a Cynwyd in between the two Paoli trains.

5) since septa stations are so close, would it speed up the schedules at all to have the trains decellerate at a higher rate and closer to the stations, more akin to the subways? it seems that they could operate at higher speeds on the keystone line...

I suppose they could, but the railroad equipment is a good deal heavier, so it isn't going to accelerate or brake as well. The trains are capable of faster braking than they normally use in service, but it isn't comfortable for the passengers.

JSC: I understand your frustrations. I can't speak for the trolleys or the busses and their reasons for delay, I've never operated either mode before. Would the inbound R3 from Elwyn be a feasible suggestion for you, from the 49th street station. You'll get to 30th street in less than 10 minutes. As far as your query about the westbound R5 in the morning, I believe I can provide an explanation; I think I even know the trains your speaking of. There are no express trains on the reverse commute routes. Train 507 is an express train originating from Doylestown (local to Ft. Washington and express into Market East) and train 505 and 509 are both locals from Lansdale destined for Malvern (Frazier Yard). Train 507 has signs displaying 'THORNDALE EXPRESS' in the morning when its still on the Reading side, and they leave the express signs in through Center City despite the fact that it operates local to Thorndale. The local follows the express on the Reading side (509 local follows 507 express) but both run local out of Center City on the Harrisburg line.
As far as trains braking later at increased speeds, Yes we can do that. But why? As mentioned, the schedules are padded in most instances. Engineers on the RRD are also scrutinized for 'rough train handling'. A supervisor on the RRD would find the train stops the subway operators make unnacceptable with Silverliners and PP's. SEPTA RRD rules department and transportation managers unofficially mandate us to make smooth stops in passenger operations. Sometimes they give us unnannounced rides to check up on our compliance.
I confess that when I am behind schedule, I tend to run just the way JSC and Jfrey40535 suggest.

(used to operate train 507 and 509 and used to hear complaints similiar to JSC's)

In line with the ranting, I still don't understand why the 5:00 PM Norristown local leaves 30th street before the 5:09 express. No one has an incentive to take the express because the local arrives first anyway, people getting off at East Falls, Wissahicken and Manayunk have no fall back until 5:30, if the local is at all late the express is forced to slow down and wait, and then they wonder why no one waits for the express. Whovian, you're pretty knowledgable about there operations, any idea why that (in my opinion) silly timing has persisted through 3 schedule changes now?

Finally, I maintain it's SEPTA's poor maintenance and engineering capabilities that make the trolleys so bad (along with a lack of willingness to channel money into real, tangible improvements to them, rather than, say, trading cards). That and the age of the system.

For the life of me I can't figure out SEPTA's scheduling strategem. Train 4648 departs 30th street at 5pm as you say. It skips North Broad and Allegheny and goes directly to East Falls (if memory serves me correctly). Train 4650 (originates in Trenton) is do out of 30th at 5:09 and expresses from Temple U to Ivy Ridge. Having operated 4650, I can say that your absolutely right about the express catching up to the local, although the local is due out of Ivy Ridge about 5 minutes ahead of the express. If anything, I would argue that 4648 should be the express, and 4650 should run express Temple to East Falls then local to Elm st. SEPTA's operations people don't really put much stock in crew members' suggestions though.

In a (very rare on my part) bit of appreciation for SEPTA's situation, remember that the R5 is not completely theirs. They have to work around Amtrak and anyone else who shares the line. AFAIK Amtrak gets first priority pretty much regardless.

However screwy scheduling elsewhere on the system seems to be more the norm than the exception. For years the 100 schedule had locals and expresses leaving 69th Street at equal-spaced intervals. It made it easy to figure out when the next car would depart, 'cept that it meant the express would catch up to the local around Wynnewood Rd. and poke along till the local went into the pocket at Bryn Mawr.

Then there was the craziness with several bus lines out my way in Chester/Montgomery Counties. Even though the 124 and 125 buses share a major portion of their routing, by SEPTA's own admission the 2 schedules were set up independently. The result was that over the shared portion of the route the rush hour schedule consisted of 2 or 3 buses within a couple of minutes of each other, followed by a half hour with no service, followed by 3 buses in 8 minutes ... I worked out an alternative schedule that adjusted the unshared parts of the schedules by a max of 5 minutes but provided nearly equal headways over the shared parts. Needless to say no one at SEPTA was interested.

Finally there is the late and lamented Route 95 service to K of P. Like the 125, it shared part of its route with the 124. For years the 95 was scheduled to leave 2 or 3 minutes after the 124, once every half hour. Of course the 124 was crammed to the gills while the 95 ran nearly empty. SEPTA finally eliminated that part of its route due to "inadequate demand". At an On-Site I asked one of the senior managers why they simply didn't offset the 95 schedule by 13 minutes to provide equal headways and balance some of the 124's overcrowding. The response? "We only look at average service frequency. Two buses every half hour still provides an average of 15 minute service. Done deal." I muttered something about Monty Python and walked away. My guess is that the guy is now working for FEMA.

JeffK wrote:Then there was the craziness with several bus lines out my way in Chester/Montgomery Counties. Even though the 124 and 125 buses share a major portion of their routing, by SEPTA's own admission the 2 schedules were set up independently.

Part of the reason for that was the TWU not wanting to give up its part of the 125 (née 45) operation. As a result, 124 was operated by the Suburban Division and 125 by the City Division. That also had the effect of screwing up management, since the routes were separately managed too. But that doesn't excuse the lack of coordination in schedules.

Question--was some of that associated with the different endpoints? If so, I'd be sending out the bus terminating at or near King of Prussia first, and the one going beyond KoP shortly after, in order to balance the demand.

Matthew Mitchell wrote: ...Part of the reason for that was the TWU not wanting to give up its part of the 125 (née 45) operation. As a result, 124 was operated by the Suburban Division and 125 by the City Division. That also had the effect of screwing up management, since the routes were separately managed too. But that doesn't excuse the lack of coordination in schedules...

Actually it's the other way around. Now that 124 and 125 are two separate routes now, the 124 is operated by Frontier Depot (TWU territory) with the 125 operated by Red Arrow (UTU territory).

<i>I suppose they could, but the railroad equipment is a good deal heavier, so it isn't going to accelerate or brake as well. The trains are capable of faster braking than they normally use in service, but it isn't comfortable for the passengers.</i>

I'm not too sure. While the high weight of the current fleet makes braking a big challenge, the LIRR and Metro-North have had a 3.0mph/s service rate for years now and there's not much complaint from passengers. The big trick is to make braking SMOOTH and controlled - something the brake system Septa's cars use may not be able to do at those rates. The M-7s tend to be choppy in the wrong hands, but the crappy ride of those cars tends to make you notice bad brake technique less...

The SL II/III cars don't have dynamics, either, and high braking means a nice high amount of heat going into the wheels - I've been told that lack of dynamics on one truck on the Arrow IIIs is one reason why they got cut back to 80mph - the heat loading would otherwise be severe enough to cause concern. With the frequent stops on Septa giving little time to cool the wheels/brakes off, a high rate might be too much for the equipment to safely deal with.

[quote="NasadowskThe SL II/III cars don't have dynamics, either, and high braking means a nice high amount of heat going into the wheels - I've been told that lack of dynamics on one truck on the Arrow IIIs is one reason why they got cut back to 80mph - the heat loading would otherwise be severe enough to cause concern. With the frequent stops on Septa giving little time to cool the wheels/brakes off, a high rate might be too much for the equipment to safely deal with.[/quote]

Maybe if Septa had left the disc brakes installed as Budd designed and intended, this wouldn't be a problem but I guess that's a whole 'nother issue.

<I>Maybe if Septa had left the disc brakes installed as Budd designed and intended, this wouldn't be a problem</i>

But disc brakes on trains are unamerican!!!!!

Heaven forbid anyone in this country even <i>attempt</i> to innovate with railroad equipment. What's sad is just about everything Budd innovated is seen everywhere but the US now...

Matthew Mitchell wrote:Question--was some of that associated with the different endpoints? If so, I'd be sending out the bus terminating at or near King of Prussia first, and the one going beyond KoP shortly after, in order to balance the demand.

Hi Matt,

IIRC most of the runs were full-length, with the 124 headed to Chesterbrook and the 125 to Valley Forge. Neither of those routings beyond K of P were subject to a lot of congestion, so assuming a bus made it out of the city without undue delay they were pretty much able hold to the schedule on the return trip. The problem was simply having the departures scheduled so that any differences in travel times over the non-shared route created a kind of "constructive interference" where arrivals bunched up at the points where the two lines merged.

No diferent from scheduling an R2, R3 and R5 all to arrive at 30th St (or is that Franklin?) Station within a few minutes of each other. Everything's OK till the routes merge, then everyone is jockeying for the same slots.

However the 95/124 mismatch was the real screwup. The people I talked to were pretty high up (VP level or so) and it was boggling that they were clueless about why "averages" can be essentially useless. To quote a long-ago stat professor, an "average" human has one ovary and half a beard, but in reality it almost never works out that way

Brake fade is indeed a challenge with the Silverliner II's and III's. It really is not much of a challenge to run them smoothly, but it is risky trying to run them hard and brake hard on the higher speed lines like the NEC or the Harrisburg line, especially with the frequent stops. I actually prefer a good set of Budd's on the Reading side, particularly during slippery rail season. Another problem with the majority of SEPTA's Silverliner fleet overall is the lack of consistent braking from various cars. For example, the initial brake reduction on some Silverliner IV's are enough to bring the train to a stop, while others require Full Service to slow the train down. SEPTA's AEM-7's are actually fairly easy to run smoothly, given practice, but the frequency of the local stops and the constraints of scheduling sometimes make a smooth ride difficult.

sounds like a maintainance issue....as in lack of. I know the Amtrak that I ride in the AM (#607) sometimes gets to Paoli early and they have to wait a couple minutes to depart. The conductors usually smile about that and say something about the engineer not knowing to "take it easy" on that run. To me, it would seem that they could tighten up the schedules and shorten the ride for the passengers.