Route 100 Extension to King of Prussia

The SEPTA Route 100 extension to King of Prussia and Valley Forge extends the Route 100 trolley (the Norristown High Speed Line) by 4.9 route miles. Stations on this line would include:

- King of Prussia Station, adjacent to the park and ride lot on Bill Smith Boulevard. (Elevated station.)
- Plaza-Court Station, at the King of Prussia mall complex, adjacent to the Strawbridges parking garage. (Elevated station.)
- First Avenue Station, in the King of Prussia Business Park. (Elevated station.)
- Valley Forge Station, adjacent to the Valley Forge Towers apartments. (At-grade station.)



This $245.4 million project (in 2002 dollars) is an extension of the existing light rail line between Norristown and 69th Street Station. It involves about 2.2 miles of elevated track, and 2.7 miles of at-grade track, for a total of 4.9 miles.

From the SEPTA 12/2005 Capital Project Update:

The Route 100 is an electric rail line operating between the 69th Street Terminal in Upper Darby (Delaware County) and the Norristown Transportation Center in Norristown (Montgomery County), a distance of 13.5 miles.

The existing Route 100 line passes adjacent to, but does not directly serve, the King of Prussia/Port Kennedy area. Thus, a relatively short extension of approximately 4.6 miles could tap this important and growing suburban market area, while enhancing the value and utility of the existing line.



From the SEPTA FY 2006 Capital Budget:

The Route 100 is a rail transit line providing frequent service between 69th Street Station in Upper Darby, Delaware County, and the Norristown Transportation Center in Norristown, Montgomery County. The Route 100 serves numerous stations in Delaware and Montgomery Counties. The route runs tangential to King of Prussia, but provides no direct service. Transit trips to and from King of Prussiainvolve transfers between the Route 100 and bus routes serving the King of Prussia area.

The King of Prussia area, located at the intersection of four major highways, is home to the largest shopping mall in the northeast and to a large business/office park. The King of Prussia Mall employs over 12,500 and the Valley Forge Office Parks employ over 12,600. Together, these complexes generate a large number of trips for both commuting and shopping. Increased traffic congestion has beset the area, despite continuing highway improvements. The proposed extension will greatly improve the convenience and attractiveness of public transportation. It is projected that an additional 3,800 riders would be attracted to this rail line if extended to the King of Prussia area. In addition, bus routes would be revised to better coordinate with the extended rail line.

This project provides for a 4.9-mile extension of the existing Route 100 Norristown High Speed Line, from a point just north of the current Hughes Park Station, westward along the Norfolk-Southern Morrisville Line (Dale Secondary) freight railroad right-of-way, then northward through King of Prussia to Valley Forge. Four new rail stations are proposed for the extension as follows: King of Prussia Station, adjacent to the park and ride lot on Bill Smith Boulevard; Plaza-Court Station at the mall complex, adjacent to the Strawbridges parking garage; First Avenue Station in the King of Prussia Business Park; and Valley Forge Station, in proximity to Valley Forge Towers apartments. The project includes approximately 2.2 miles of double-track, elevated guideway between King of Prussia and Valley Forge, and the first three stations listed above will be built on the elevated portion of the guideway. The existing Route 100 vehicle fleet andmaintenance shop have sufficient capacity to support this rail service extension.

The Schuylkill Valley Metro task force, which was convened by Governor Ed Rendell and Congressman Jim Gerlach, is considering this project as part of its review of the cost and phasing of the Schuylkill Valley Metro. A Fiscal Year 2006 Congressional New Starts earmark has been requested for this project.

My capital cost estimate

My page on this project


Status: Recently separated from the Schuylkill Valley Metro project, and engineering is being revised as of 2006.

Again, much discussed in some long-ago threads. IMHO this would be the most cost-effective project of anything SEPTA has proposed for the western suburbs, and not just because I live in the area it would serve. (I say western suburbs because there are also projects like the BSS extension that would have similarly high ROIs and I don't want to short them.) The routing is pretty much available, there are already enough cars to serve(*) and the power grid has been updated to handle the extra tracks. There's also ready demand that would ensure good traffic from Day One.

HOWEVER, like everything else SEPTA has proposed this project is mired in budget shortfalls and politics. In 1997, I was told at a local planning meeting that, to paraphrase, I could put my hand on a Bible that I would be riding an N-5 to the Plaza by mid-'01. That was followed by problems such as the Crockett Lane and V.F. Towers screwups that delayed work while the routing had to be revised, the famous $70M shortfall developed, and the line is now caught in the same great gray fog that envelops the SVM. Completion times have stretched to 7 - 10 years from whenever ground is broken, but that starting point is now "indefinite". You do the math.

(*)But by the time the extension is built, the N-5's may be turning into antiques as happened with the Bullets

Actually, the idea of extending this line dates back to P&W days. At the same time that the present route to Norristown was being built, P&W floated the idea of building a spur from Gulph Mills to West Consohoken, and later proposed to run to Valley Forge, as well as to East Lansdowne over a portion of the PRR Cardigan Branch. In 1963, after the merger with the Red Arrow, Merritt Taylor proposed to upgrade the Reading's Chester Valley Branch and run to Downingtown via King of Prussia, branching off from the Norristown Line at Gulph Mills. There is some indication that the purchase of the "Electroliners-Liberty Liners" was in anticipation of running to Downingtown. Needless to say, none of these projects ever materialized, for a number of reasons. Hopefully ( but probably not likely) the current proposal will have a better fate.

Walt, thanks for extending the history back further than I had taken it. My memory of the Electroliner purchase was that Downingtown was more than an just an option. AFAIR at the time the trainsets were said to have been bought specifically for service along a route roughly parallel to what is now the 6-lane concrete swath of Route 202.

When that line failed to materialize, they were shifted to the P&W where they unfortuately were just too heavy and power-hungry to be practical. It was still a treat to be allowed in the rear cab once in a while when the operator was a guy I knew. Yeah, it was backwards but the gauges worked so I had some feeling of what was going on at the other end. The '40s decor was pretty cool, too. Just needed the Mills Brothers or Benny Goodman over the speaker system to set the mood...

The line to Downingtown appeared in the 1963 Red Arrow annual report. According to Ronald DeGraw, the Red Arrow found that upgrading the single track Reading line over which that service was to run would be far more expensive than the Red Arrow could handle, and the Reading was less than cooperative ( nature of the failure to cooperate was not specified). DeGraw noted that the line had disappeared from subsequent annual reports. I rode a Liner once---- it was a shame that the P&W's infrastructure couldn't handle them, but I suspect that the Norristown Line also had proven to be too short to really use those two trains.

Even if the Downingtown line had been "built", it would have still been necessary to upgrade the entire P&W infrastructure to handle the Liners since the Downingtown Line was intended to branch off from the P&W near Gulph Mills--- the trains would have run from 69th Street to Gulph Mills and then taken the upgraded Reading trackage to Downingtown.

I was fortunate enough to take many rides on the Liners. There were only 2 trips in the afternoon at that time and I would sometimes wait around just to make sure I was on one of them.

In addition to the power draw, the consists were just too heavy for the rails that were in use at the time (and still are, on parts of the line). And with a top speed in the vicinity of 100 mph the cars were really playing in the wrong league, given those tight curves and closely-spaced stations.

I rode the Liberty Liners a number of times, too, from Radnor to 69th Street in the afternoon. I'd sit in the second seat, so I could enjoy the view through the railfan window and also see the speedometer and ammeter, since the motorman always kept the door open.

http://community.webshots.com/photo/285 ... AGjutrqpuQ

http://community.webshots.com/photo/285 ... TLbJRrtgRp

Some history of the P&W line from http://www.waynepa.com/history/trains/pandwrr.html:

1. Philadelphia and Western Railway Company founded in 1902, as part of George Gould's proposed intercontinental railway.

2. Construction on the line to Strafford began in 1905, at a cost of 400,000 per mile. In inflation-adjusted 2003 dollars, this is about $7.8 million per mile. Compare that to the projected cost of $50 million per mile for the KofP extension.

3. First trolley run from 69th Street Station to Strafford on May 22, 1907.

4. Extension to PRR Strafford station completed in 1911.

5. Extension to Norristown began service on Dec 12, 1912.

6. The Strafford branch was never very profitable, and cost the company $38,000 a year to run in the 1950s. It was abandoned in 1956.

7. Plans for a trail along the abandoned ROW were suggested starting in the 1960's. In 1995, Radnor township residents voted to construct a bike trail. In July or August 2004, construction began on the trail, scheduled to be completed around January 2005.

There is a copy of the book The Red Arrow by Ronald DeGraw in the Radnor Memorial Library, if anybody is looking for a copy of it. It has a section on the P&W.

I happen to live in the area a few blocks from the abandoned P&W ROW, so I get to see what's happening to it almost every day.

Getting back to the topic of the KofP extension, this project is listed under the FTA New Starts category in SEPTA's Capital Budget FY 2005, which means it stuck in the same limbo as the SVM project. What's more, the Montgomery County planning commission doesn't even mention this project on its web site.

Lucius Kwok wrote:Some history of the P&W line from http://www.waynepa.com/history/trains/pandwrr.html:

1. Philadelphia and Western Railway Company founded in 1902, as part of Jay Gould's proposed intercontinental railway.


There is a copy of the book The Red Arrow by Ronald DeGraw in the Radnor Memorial Library, if anybody is looking for a copy of it. It has a section on the P&W.

Just a slight correction---- It was George Gould, Jay Gould's son who forumlated the original transcontinental railroad plan, of which P&W was to be the eastern end. Gould controlled the Wabash Railroad at the time and was attempting to extend it east. ( He also had some involvement with the Western Maryland, which was also a part of this scheme). The idea ended when the Wabash got into financial trouble which ultimately resulted in Gould losing control of this, and his other railroad holdings.

When attempting to find the section ( two chapters)on the P&W in the DeGraw book, you have to be careful which edition you look at. I understand that it is only the 1972 ( original ) edition that contains the chapters on the P&W-- the later edition only goes up to 1948, and does not include the P&W.

walt wrote:When attempting to find the section ( two chapters)on the P&W in the DeGraw book, you have to be careful which edition you look at. I understand that it is only the 1972 ( original ) edition that contains the chapters on the P&W-- the later edition only goes up to 1948, and does not include the P&W.

That's correct. My much-missed language teacher Allan Rice (a/k/a Eric LaNal, for those of you who remember the early history of HO gauge modelling) owned a copy of the original version. By the time I got out of college and had enough money to spend on things other than food & shelter, only the new edition was available.

Some years back Ron mentioned that he was thinking about a further update but I have not heard anything since.

Thanks for the corrections. My local library has a copy of the 1972 edition, but it's currently checked out. It's also in a few other libraries in the region. I haven't seen the 1985 edition, but that one seems even more rare. In my research on historical subjects like this, I have found that many of these kinds of books have very limited printing runs of a couple thousand or less, which means that they're usually only found in public libraries and in the hands of book collectors and historians.

That's correct, especially when dealing with a company that was as small( though very unique) as the Red Arrow. I have a copy of the 1972 book which I had ordered from the publisher ( Haverford Press) back in 1973. I never understood, though, why the second edition was cut the way it was. The information on P&W and the Red Arrow itself, after 1948, which is in the original edition, but was eliminated from the second edition was as complete as any I have seen elsewhere, so there was no need for much additional research. However, the original edition is well worth the effort one might have to expend to find it.

I've updated the first post in this thread with some updated information that's in SEPTA's capital budget reports.

The Electroliners that became Liberty Liners look rather sleek and at 140 feet long could carry a lot more passengers than the trolley cars that SEPTA uses today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroliner

Lucius, thanks for the updated info. That's the first positive news in a long time. There have been no stories in the local media nor any announcements of presentations or hearings, so I hope this is not yet another case of SEPTA letting words take the place of action.

Interestingly, the Wikipedia article described how the 'Liners switched to overhead power for the portion of the trip from Norristown to Allentown.

If only that had been possible....

Needless to say, the reference has now been removed.

Thanks for the correction.