Without going into it in detail, I assumed it might be to lengthen the weekend turnaround time in Wilmington (the previous 19 minutes or so was practically impossible to meet and resulted in late northbound departures) by pairing it with another line with different Center City times, but based on BuddCar 711's experience they seem to have exchanged one delay for another.
The real choke point on the Wilmington line is the 2-track stretch from HOLLY to WINE and the lack of a crossover at WINE to permit a southbound move from Track 3 to Track 1, requiring a southbound terminating at Wilmington to run "wrong line" on 2 from LANDLITH--they've lived with that for 40 years, ever since 2 was designated for northbound Amtrak trains with the installation of the high-level platform.
As an aside question, anybody know why they built a half-gantry at WINE for the northbound signals on 2 and 3, and then put pedestal signals up there? Pedestal signals were designed to be on the ground, and everything that goes through Wilmington stops at the station.
The real choke point on the Wilmington line is the 2-track stretch from HOLLY to WINE and the lack of a crossover at WINE to permit a southbound move from Track 3 to Track 1, requiring a southbound terminating at Wilmington to run "wrong line" on 2 from LANDLITH--they've lived with that for 40 years, ever since 2 was designated for northbound Amtrak trains with the installation of the high-level platform.
As an aside question, anybody know why they built a half-gantry at WINE for the northbound signals on 2 and 3, and then put pedestal signals up there? Pedestal signals were designed to be on the ground, and everything that goes through Wilmington stops at the station.
