Some Observations/Suggestions

I started to ride the train on a regular basis starting mid-September due to beginning school at Drexel University. I use the R-2 almost all the time, the R-3 less, and the R-7 once after sleeping late and needing to get to the city ASAP (the outbound side of Cornwells Heights needs to be redone TOO btw). I've used the MFL and various bus routes a good number of times to visit a friend at St. Joes, but I don't have much to say about that. I've also used the R-6 Cynwyd and R-5 Thorndale a few times for the same reason.

A few observations (Overall):

-Speeds between 30th Street and Suburban are excruciating. Same between Temple and Wayne Jct., and to a lesser extent all the way to Fern Rock.

-During an impromptu visit to SEPTA customer service, I noticed a few schedule video screens are still labeled as Fox Chase/Newtown. Very very neat railfan-wise, potentially confusing riding public-wise.

-Wayne Junction is a s**thole. It's a shame too because the station appears to be the ghost of a formerly architechturally beautiful building.

-The side walls along the tracks between 30th Street and Suburban are in need of repair and painting.

-What is the deal with the ends of the platforms at 30th street, the ones that are just outside the roofs? When were they disused and why?

-Maps in many trains date to 2000 (one dated to 1992) and still show the likes of Wissinoming and Lamokin

-Ardsley stops traffic for a long time. What's the feasibility of moving it further to either side of whatever road that is?

-They always lock out cars in a consist which forces uncomfortable crowding. Can't this be remedied?

-Why is there a track from the Reading main to the PRR where is passes over south of Wayne Jct? What is the feasibility of using it to get Reading-side trains to 30th street?

-Crew changes just south of Wayne Junction seem unnecessary.

-Expresses that disclude the lower half of a line should be more abundant.

-The R-5 is fantastically fast. Once I was being thrown out of my seat due to the breakneck speed reached b/w Overbrook and 30th Street. Good show. SPREAD THIS ACROSS THE SYSTEM

R-6 CYNWYD:

-As cool as it is, the flyover for Cynwyd isn't necessary for the amount of traffic it sees. A simple switch off the Northern-most track of the R-5 would suffice and probably would make things faster.

-Painfully slow the whole way. I know it's the fastest way there, but it's frustrating when the trip could still be much much shorter.

-What are the many parallel tracks to the right that appear out of nowhere after just getting off the flyover towards Cynwyd?

-Why was the 52nd Street Station closed?

-Accept tokens on this particular line only (perhaps 2 to Bala and Cynwyd), continue to accept Transpasses, and advertise the crap out of that fact. Do that and I guarantee you would make the difference back in the sheer volume of riders.


Above all, it'd sure be nice to be able to drive 2 minutes to Churchville and jump on the train.

SCB2525 wrote:-The R-5 is fantastically fast. Once I was being thrown out of my seat due to the breakneck speed reached b/w Overbrook and 30th Street. Good show. SPREAD THIS ACROSS THE SYSTEM

SOMEONE would complain about the speed being TOO FAST. You know this s*it PC society we live in... someone would find something to rip SEPTA apart about.

As Herb Cane so poignantly put it:

"We both stared, slack-jawed, as a woman gracefully lept aboard a moving streetcar, all the while smoking a cigarette. Have we become so afraid of what will happen that we have lost the right to board a moving streetcar?"

It would be a break-neck ride between 30th Street and Overbrook. Most of the ROW is in deplorable condition. The fastest stretch outbound (on number 4 track) between 30th Street and Overbrook is 60mph, not really all that fast considering. As far as R-6 Cynwyd service, I could not agree more. People in Wynnefield and surrounding areas would surely use the train instead of the long bus ride into town. SEPTA needs to advertise the service a lot more than they do, instead of trying to find ways to eliminate the route altogether. As far as express trains go, I think SEPTA's mainline suffers from only having two tracks to work with, as opposed to Amtrak having four tracks. Even during rush hour, trains are running on top of each other. The smallest delay on a local train will have the express train following them all the way to the end of the line. Ride 'express' trains 6572, 6576, or even 4650. Generally, these trains have to operate BELOW normal track speed to prevent running in to slow signals.

Now that I think about it, the train was behind schedule, so that could account for the speed that night.

Ardsley (R2 Warminster): There is a water main replacement project on Jenkintown Road and Edge Hill Road which is causing the traffic delays you noticed (they'd be a lot less worse if they had a better flagger at Jenkintown and Tyson). The trains themselves do not cause significant delay.

Matt Mitchell
(lives nearby and gets caught in that construction-related traffic daily)

Yes, speeds are too slow in the trunk of the system. Part of the reason is the excessive padding in the schedules.

Crews are required to open at least two cars of every consist, and more depending on various circumstances. But crew discipline is lacking on SEPTA, so this and other passenger service orders are often ignored.

The connecting track you saw at 16th Street Junction (interlocking just north of North Broad) does not connect to the ex-Reading main, it connects to the Norristown branch. There is not room for a connection to the main. It would not be feasible for routine service because of the grade and because the ex-PRR and ex-Reading electrification systems are separate, and it would be a bad idea to put a phase break on a grade like that.

There are relatively few crew changes at Roberts Yard/Wayne Tower. Changes happen there sometimes because some crews go on and off duty there and it saves paying deadhead time. There are many more employee stops at that location, picking up or dropping off deadhead employees--only certain trains are allowed to make that stop, and only when they are not running late--otherwise, employees are required to use the regular stop at Wayne Junction. However, that is one of those frequently-disregarded rules.

52nd Street was closed after a fire burned down the station. Ridership was in the single digits. It probably would do a lot better now, with reverse commuters.

BTW, Queen Lane, the columnist in SF is Herb Caen. Good writer, and one of the best friends the cable cars ever had.

Matt Mitchell
(boarded moving cable cars while in SF for a business trip--nothing like riding at 7:45 am, before the tourists flood the system)

Oops! I should have known that Caen was the right spelling.

O/T...

When I ride the cable cars, I am usually with 10,000 tourists, but I am still a 'local' (I grew up there). They gasp when I easily alight from a moving car when my stop, or where I want to get off, comes up.

But, I also know how to board and alight moving equipment... Thanks Amtrak!

R5 Paoli would do well to include some A-B style expresses for the interior stops along the line. They are simply far too close before you get out past paoli. Some of the stations are little more than a mile as the crow flies. When they get done redoing the tracks they need to seriously think about redoing scheduling on this line. But i suppose that's a pipe dream

One of septa's problems is that some of it's routes terminate within or just over the city limits of Philly. The NYC subway has some routes that travel more miles from midtown manhattan and still end up in the city. I wouldn't mind seeing service to the Lehigh region as well as to the Delaware coast. The question is where will the money come from.

ktrain wrote:When they get done redoing the tracks they need to seriously think about redoing scheduling on this line. But i suppose that's a pipe dream

Actually, they're starting to do just that - over the entire RRD.

What line was Lamokin on and where was it?

capuzfu wrote:What line was Lamokin on and where was it?

R2 Wilmington line, between Chester and Highland Ave. in Chester City. MP 14.3.

Why is it the push-pulls still have the last generation maps with West Chester and Newtown "temporarily" replaced by shuttle buses?

Optimism?