SEPTA Paving over Route 23 trolley tracks

reldnahkram wrote:I suspect that's a function of the pay when you're away from 69th St. fare [fair] system. If the driver pulls up far enough so that both cars can be boarded, then passengers boarding/deboarding his/her car have to walk the length of the car to pay the fare [fair].

That makes sense if the platform is short, but many are long enough to hold the lead car plus the front vestibule of the trailer. If both operators open their front doors, passengers should be able to simply pay as they board/leave. However it seems that the lead car is often spotted short of the platform end so that the trailer can't be boarded w/o pulling up further.

If service to King of Prussia is started during the N-5's lifetime, could 5-10 articulated cars for the line be included in the costs?

IIRC the reason for purchasing 26 N-5s was in anticipation of King of Prussia service. Supposedly 69th Street-Norristown requres at most 15 or 16 cars to operate a full complement of expresses, trippers and double-headers plus having a few cars in reserve.

But I think your evaluation is correct - given the current rate of non-progress the N-5s will be scrapped before we ever see a station in K of P. Maybe a few artics can be in the next order.

reldnahkram wrote:If service to King of Prussia is started during the N-5's lifetime, could 5-10 articulated cars for the line be included in the costs?

The N-5 order included sufficient cars for King of Prussia (good example for foresight on SEPTA's part).

jfrey40535 wrote:Walt, you don't get it. Its not the cars that are the problem, its the mode os service. Streetcars and automobiles simply don't mix. What people want is an efficient mode of transportation that is reliable. I hardly call a vehicle that can't manuver around a parked/broken down vehicle reliable.

Actually, I've been aware of the "inflexibility" argument with regard to streetcars for many years. ( I've spent more than a few minutes on a Route 34 PCC car on Baltimore Ave. waiting for an Oil truck to complete its delivery). What this illustrates is the need to make some core decisions. If we are primarily concerned with allowing automobiles to move freely about a city, to the exclusion of other factors, than bustitution is/ was the only option. If, on the other hand, we're conerned with moving as many people as we can in the most efficient manner possible, and with as little air pollution as possible, then you need some form of streetcar system.

The problem with cars being impeded by parked, stalled, or oversize vehicular traffic is best solved by favoring the streetcar ( by dedicated ROW's, using them on streets which are wide eoungh to accomodate both the cars and parked vehicles, and strictly enforcing regulations aimed at keeping a clear ROW) over rubber tired vehicles wherever possible.

During the "heyday" of the city streetcar, an integrated concept for using the several types of transit vehicles actually existed. It involves using streetcars on heavily travelled "trunk" lines ( which would presumably run over streets which were wide enough to accomodate both the cars and other traffic), and using either the motor ( gasoline or diesel) bus or the trackless trolley on feeder routes. This was aborted when, for a number of reasons, not all of them really valid, it became more attractive for most transit operators to bustitute ALL of their streetcar lines, and to create all- bus systems. We've been suffering the consequences of this decision for a number of decades.