What is that Triple Track thing in Quakertown?

Hi,

I come from a place that has celebrated 200 years of railroad traffic. I love railways and still believe they can play an important part in global transport. I moved to the Quakertown area and notice there is a station there. No passengers and no line north anymore.

I also noticed a weird triple-track section that is the strangest configuration of switches I've ever seen.

So, my question is, when can I ride the Quakertown to Lansdale train..

R

RichB wrote:Hi,

I come from a place that has celebrated 200 years of railroad traffic. I love railways and still believe they can play an important part in global transport. I moved to the Quakertown area and notice there is a station there. No passengers and no line north anymore.

I also noticed a weird triple-track section that is the strangest configuration of switches I've ever seen.

So, my question is, when can I ride the Quakertown to Lansdale train..

R

Welcome, Rich!

For information about the line through Quakertown, check out this thread:
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=43

I assume that the funky triple track section you're talking about is this:
http://jrevans.fbody.com/qtown_07252005 ... _north.jpg

If so, that's because the EPRY had reversed the existing crossover for better switching of the Quakertown and in the process, they lost access to the former Northbound main since they didn't put another switch in.

That wasn't a problem at the time, since they didn't need to access the track beyond that point, but then they got a large contract to store railcars and needed the track to hold cars at the end of the line.

I guess that they didn't have a switch lying around that faced the correct direction, so they installed the "swing wide" track to get where they needed to go.

I have lots of area pictures on my website, which you'll find in my signature.

Jim,

Thanks for your welcome and reply.

That thread was an interesting read. As a rail enthusiast I would welcome the idea of a train to Lansdale from Quakertown and I would gladly take it even if it put 15 minutes on my journey. I believe that mass-transport is the way ahead and I was very pleased that those who are looking into putting passenger trains back are also looking at freight and passengers co-existing on the same track. In the UK there are many light rail systems that re-create old routes that could have increased revenue and taken much needed freight off the roads and back onto the tracks had local councils not wanted their 'European tram'.

I champion the efforts so far and look forward to adding my voice to bring back rail services to my area.

Rich

PS That was the switch configuration I was talking about. Thanks for the explanation, I was wondering if it was something like that.

Lovely website you have. Thanks for sharing.

Rich,

Welcome. Please explore the Septa portion of railroad.net as there exists much interest in the restoration of commuter rail service in the Philadelphia region.