Trenton Spur At Frazer/Cross Country Metro

One might assume the problem is the art museum tunnels. It would probably be the only point on the line where things could get a little tight.

thegivenup wrote:One might assume the problem is the art museum tunnels. It would probably be the only point on the line where things could get a little tight.

And from the sounds of it, the clearance over the connection from Zoo to the Reading line would also have to be too low for such a roundabout route to be necessary.

-asg

The clearance issue is that there are low-clearance bridges, and CSX is indeed spending a lot of money to improve clearance sufficiently to run their trains. My company is doing survey work and design engineering on this project now. I'll try to get some details about what exactly the obstructions are - I know the Rhawn Street bridge was one of them until very recently.

PARailWiz wrote:The clearance issue is that there are low-clearance bridges, and CSX is indeed spending a lot of money to improve clearance sufficiently to run their trains. My company is doing survey work and design engineering on this project now. I'll try to get some details about what exactly the obstructions are - I know the Rhawn Street bridge was one of them until very recently.

I would guess that Old Soldiers Road (by Cheltenham station) and maybe even Southampton Road would also be on that list. Sounds like a lot of undercutting needs to be done since most of the overpasses on the line are fairly modern at this point.

I would guess that Old Soldiers Road (by Cheltenham station) and maybe even Southampton Road would also be on that list. Sounds like a lot of undercutting needs to be done since most of the overpasses on the line are fairly modern at this point.

That's exactly what they did under the Rhawn Street bridge. They built a track a couple feet lower than the existing one. When the new one was finished, they just switched the track over and then removed the old one.

Noticed that there have been a lot more trains on the Trenton Spur and also they are increasinmg their speed ++. Anyone know what is going on? Just the recession lifting and the Coatsville recycling plant taking of? or what?

pumpers wrote:The CSX stacks on the Morrisville line are going from South Philadephia to the CSX trenton line (ex Reading).
THey can't go the all-CSX route (ex BO from South Philadelphia to PARK by the museum, then the Reading line to the ex-Reading
Trenton line, because of some clearance issues. So instead they go over the Arsenal bridge, over the high line to Abrams,
and then reverse to go through Septa -land and then onto the Morrisville line, getting back onto CSX trenton line at Wood(?).

THere is talk of CSX fixing its clearance issues, so it doesn't have to do this.

My questions is, who knows exactly where the clearance issues are?

JS

The entire Trenton Line from CP-RIVER to CP-WOOD is the issue. With a few exceptions, every overpass is too low for autoracks or stacks. Currently, the line has been undercut for clearance at Rhawn Street and from CP-NICE to CP-RIVER. Preliminary work is going on now for Cottman Avenue and adjacent Oxford Ave/Bleigh St.
Still to go: the Low Grade from CP-NICE to 18th Street, Olney Avenue, Levick Street, Old Soldiers, Bustleton Ave and Red Lion Rd (which appear to need mere inches to drop and not feet), Byberry Road, Southampton Avenue, Hulmeville Avenue, and the NS Morrisville Line. And between 15th Street and Olney Avenue as well as Neshaminy Falls to CP-WOOD, the steady span wires for SEPTA catenary will have to be raised a few inches.

cpontani wrote:Septa announced that it's starting a new bus route #150 from Plymouth Meeting Mall to Philadelphia Park via the PA Tpke., assuming for the casino employees. Doesn't this pretty much parralel the route the Cross County Metro would have taken? Is this a chicken/egg scenario, where they won't build if there's demand, but there isn't demand because there aren't any alternatives other than driving? I know that you're not going to build a rail line to replace a couple of bus trips a day, but isn't this a step in the right direction, where Septa is admitting that people want to go from suburb to suburb without having to go via Center City?

And that bus route is almost nothing more than glorified pull-in/pull-out trips that run nonstop from the mall to Street Road, then making all stops to PARX, running only a few times a day.

Thomasthetank wrote:Noticed that there have been a lot more trains on the Trenton Spur and also they are increasinmg their speed ++. Anyone know what is going on? Just the recession lifting and the Coatsville recycling plant taking of? or what?

Still just the one train a day each way between Coatesville and CP-KING on that line (now the Dale Secondary) and the entire line is now under a long-term temporary speed restriction (10mph from GLEN to MP 45, 25mph from MP 45 to KING). The rest of the route from KING to Morrisville is the Morrisville Line and maximum speeds on that section is 50mph.

Silverliner II wrote:

cpontani wrote:Septa announced that it's starting a new bus route #150 from Plymouth Meeting Mall to Philadelphia Park via the PA Tpke., assuming for the casino employees. Doesn't this pretty much parralel the route the Cross County Metro would have taken? Is this a chicken/egg scenario, where they won't build if there's demand, but there isn't demand because there aren't any alternatives other than driving? I know that you're not going to build a rail line to replace a couple of bus trips a day, but isn't this a step in the right direction, where Septa is admitting that people want to go from suburb to suburb without having to go via Center City?

And that bus route is almost nothing more than glorified pull-in/pull-out trips that run nonstop from the mall to Street Road, then making all stops to PARX, running only a few times a day.

This bus line does NOT officially make stops on Street Road. I know this from being the poor sap that tried to use this bus route from Plymouth Meeting to my job a 10 min walk away from PARX. If the driver was nice, he'd stop at the SEPTA route 1 stop for me, but if they are strictly by the book, I'd literally pass my office building and have to walk back. This, along with the extraordinarily typically commuter unfriendly schedule (the only trip I could take to work was at 6 AM...and that required a drive to the mall or a very long walk as the local bus from my neighborhood doesn't even run that early), limited hit-or miss connections to other routes on both ends of the line, and now the elimination of the only pre-9AM trip on weekdays really renders the 150 useless to me even though I essentially duplicate the routing via car every day.

It's meant to allow SEPTA to gain a little bit of revenue to offset the cost of deadheading buses clear from Conshohocken to Lower Bucks County...and only applies to a few of the deadheading trips to boot. I don't think SEPTA wants it to be any more than that.

Even if the 150 had glorious, useable service for commuters, it still wouldn't address those heading the opposite direction with the daily traffic jams between the Rt 1 Interchange in Bensalem and King of Prussia (and every exit between these locations has very heavy peak hour useage) and there wouldn't be many ways for the bus to get around the traffic unless it traveled up the shoulder, which is too narrow on this roadway. Even if there was a low cost peak hour service along the rails between Trenton (?) and King of Prussia, which I always thought would be the strongest portion of the line and should've been the first phase, that had shuttle services to the major commerce centers that had reliable connections with the trains, it would be better than what exists today.

But for now, the only option that exists is traveling via Center City on trains or taking a hodgepodge of different bus routes to get cross county. For me, it would take 2+ hours from home to office via bus routes...[/quote]

My bad; I thought it made all the Street Road stops too... lol. Well, it ought to... but well, we know SEPTA....

This is just what the Annual Service Plan process is for. We could put in a suggestion through the program and possibly even get it implemented on an experimental basis. It's 'by the book' but in this case the book has (commendable) flexibility.

It's funny, the newspaper just did a story on this subject for the Delaware Valley Area.

Horsham, Upper Moreland, King of Prussia, Conshohocken and Radnor have seen the greatest corporate sprawl from Philadelphia in the last decade. CCM cuts through the heart of 4 of these communities.

Residential Sprawl is in occurring the most in Montco and Chesco along Rt 422 between Collegeville, Phoenixville, and Douglassville. The Schuylkill Valley Metro cuts through 3 of these towns, then kisses King of Prussia at Abrams Yard.

If you had $500 million to blow in SEPTA expansion, do you chase the job growth, or residential sprawl migration patterns?

NorthPennLimited wrote:It's funny, the newspaper just did a story on this subject for the Delaware Valley Area.

Horsham, Upper Moreland, King of Prussia, Conshohocken and Radnor have seen the greatest corporate sprawl from Philadelphia in the last decade. CCM cuts through the heart of 4 of these communities.

Residential Sprawl is in occurring the most in Montco and Chesco along Rt 422 between Collegeville, Phoenixville, and Douglassville. The Schuylkill Valley Metro cuts through 3 of these towns, then kisses King of Prussia at Abrams Yard.

If you had $500 million to blow in SEPTA expansion, do you chase the job growth, or residential sprawl migration patterns?

HMMMM

Connecting those job growth areas needs to jive with where the holders of those jobs live. I believe that DVRPC has those studies. I'm not sure the CCM will fit that bill.

One of the things that sank the CCM was that it didn't actually go to the hearts of most of those communities. It came near them but not to them, which would have forced the line to add spurs, new ROW, and/or connector services.

As one who suffers all the time from that corporate sprawl, it's a criminal shame. Like running the P&W down Route 202, if the service had been in place when sprawl was just beginning it might have helped to coordinate some of that development in the same way that the PRR and RDG main lines did. Now we're fast approaching the too-late-forever stage.

NorthPennLimited wrote:It's funny, the newspaper just did a story on this subject for the Delaware Valley Area.

Got the link?

motor

JeffK wrote:One of the things that sank the CCM was that it didn't actually go to the hearts of most of those communities. It came near them but not to them, which would have forced the line to add spurs, new ROW, and/or connector services.

As one who suffers all the time from that corporate sprawl, it's a criminal shame. Like running the P&W down Route 202, if the service had been in place when sprawl was just beginning it might have helped to coordinate some of that development in the same way that the PRR and RDG main lines did. Now we're fast approaching the too-late-forever stage.

We'll put.

Route 309 between North Wales and Montgomeryville could have sorely used better planning in the 70's and 80's It almost doubles the drive time on the weekends from Cheltenham to Quakertown. Maybe once the Northeast extension project is complete, 309 or 100 will get a couple bucks for expansion.