Route 56 gone for good

As we all know, PennDot paved over the tracks for the 56 this summer, while SEPTA took the wires down.

As a final insult, SEPTA is cutting down all of the line poles as we speak.

I thought the city forbade SEPTA from doing this? And yet SEPTA has the 56 listed in their capital budget plan. Do they do this intentionally to inflate their budget?

Also---where is the money coming from to have crews destroy the 56 infrastructure? Capital budget? Operating budget? Why are they spending money to do this when it could be used elsewhere?

Not that I doubt SEPTA's ability to sabotage the return of a trolley route, but...what's the condition of the poles along the route? If funds were made available to rehab the line and restore it, would these be poles that would be replaced anyway? I'm not in the area, but I'd find it hard to imagine that much in the way of poles and trolley wire has been replaced in recent decades.

Did they replace much of this with new stuff on Rt. 15?

The poles were just fine. In many parts of the city and even the suburbs where trolley service was bustituted long ago, many poles still stand, even 40 years later. With oil prices reaching new levels every day, it just makes no sense to continue the destruction of a relatively sound infrastructure. Does anyone know the scrap value of the Septa system? The way they're going, that's all that will be left.

jfrey40535 wrote:I thought the city forbade SEPTA from doing this?

The city insisted in having the line paved over and poles removed. As the councilperson for that part of the city.

PennDot did not pave over the 56 tracks, that was an outside contractor SEPTA hired to do the work. PennDot had no say in what happened inside 1.2 meters (don't ask me why the plans were in metric) from the curb on either side of the street as long as the tracks were on the surface. That was SEPTA's easement to maintain and care for, they got it from PTC back in 1968. PennDot milled the outer 1.2 meters of the road and resurfaced it with the standard asphalt, SEPTA took the oppertunity of PennDot's resurfacing to rid themselves of pesky surplus infrastructure they had lying around. You could clearly see where the two pavings were done, it was rather obvious when the pave job was first done, but has become less so now. According to a construction inspector I talked to the SEPTA job is a rather shoddy coat just a few rungs above cold patch, while the PennDot stuff is much higher quality. Expect to see Torresdale return to it's rutted, potholed old self, possibly worse, in as little as 5 years. The test coats around Hellerman and Unrah didn't look to be in good shape before they were re-coated. Now that SEPTA has paved over the tracks, they're no longer responsible for maitenance inside their easement (if that's even the right word) on Torresdale, not that they ever seem to have done anything. They passed the buck on to Philly Streets Division, and they're STILL in the hole for operations this year, way to go SEPTA.

There is absolutely nothing to prevent SEPTA from tearing up the pavement and putting in new rubber-coated subway surface-style rails with a concrete base other than some likely minor legal issues with PennDot and Philly Streets. Lets face it, the tracks were an utter mess, both to drive over, and likely to ride on, the poles and remaining overhead were in tatters, several of the poles looked like they'd taken a semi full-on. All we need is the substation sites, the turning loop, and the trench in the middle of the street where the original tracks were placed. The road might lose a bit of crown with rebuilding of the tracks, but the tracks themselves could be drained, or just stick some fill under the new foundations. Regarding poles, why the heck can't this city get it's act together and unify poles? PECO, SEPTA, BTC, Verizon, in some places they ALL have their own structures jutting into the sky, why can't SEPTA just buy space on a PECO pole for their 600vdc bus and support wires? There's absolutely nothing special or EMF or any BS causing effects from a frigging 600vdc sub-1000amp trolley line, so long as it's properly insulated, which I hear PECO has some sort of experience with. Hell, have PECO maintain the overhead on a turn-key system or even a BOM, and have Philly streets set up a department to do all CTD street trolley track maitenance, they'd both charge SEPTA for their services, and perhaps SEPTA'd cut some of their precious overhead I'd say any and all work to get the 56 back up to operational status as a near-new line rebuilt to modern LRV standards (those being what we see in West Philadelphia on the rebuilt subway surface lines), not to mention clearing of potential political obstacles, should be completed in advance of opening the line. There'd be little to fast tracking the 56 back to existance only to have to run buses overnights and weekends to replace final bits of trackage, and indeed that be a position almost as embarassing as, if not moreso, the Girard Ave Light Rail debacle.

Now I'd like to know where all those idiots who were claiming the paving over of the 56 would have a positive effect are. I drove down Torresdale a few weeks ago, it may be quieter, but the neighborhood sure as hell didn't change, it just surrendered a bit more of it's character. Compared to what COULD have been, with nice little low floor LRVs providing frequent, quiet, clean service to the MFL or BSS, the residents of Torresdale Ave certainly lost out. Nobody will shop by car along such a narrow street, the lack of parking is blatantly obvious, they would have benefitted more by courting customers without the burden of cars, and perhaps pushing SEPTA to reinstate the 56 along with the 15.

Oh well, I've said my piece, and I guess I need to remember, this IS SEPTA...

Just read an article in the NE Times that says Faye Moore personally authorized the destruction of the 56. Total money spent: $7 million.

What is the matter with these guys? We just spent $7 million dismantling our system! And now they want more money! Sorry---its time to write legislators and tell them SEPTA should get no money. This is nuts!

If the people on Torresdale Ave wanted the tracks and poles gone that bad they should have had the city do it.

Its one thing to lose a trolley line, its another to have a portion of the transit budget dedicated to shuttering the system.

jfrey40535 wrote:If the people on Torresdale Ave wanted the tracks and poles gone that bad they should have had the city do it.

The City wanted the tracks and poles gone, but the city cannot dismantle SEPTA facilities. So, who did you think was going to pay?

If SEPTA was never going to use the tracks again, then they should have ceded their rights to the city. I suppose either way its still our taxmoney, but at least if the city did it the money would have come from the city and not the state. Funny how SEPTA was in such a hurry to take the wires and line poles down, yet in parts of the city there are long stretches of street which still have line poles but have not seen a trolley for over 40 years. WHere's the logic in that?

Bottom line is we should not be spending transit dollars to dismantle the system.

Jeffery,

Remember those stretches (example: 58th St btwn Chester Av and Baltimore Av and also Ogontz the entire length) still serve some use because they carry substation relays to active electric routes.

Eric

Wdobner wrote:(don't ask me why the plans were in metric)

I know this is gonna launch a whole new thread, flames and all, but anyway...

Back before Reagan and the Gingrichites had their respective says on the subject, the U.S. had finally started to fall in line with the rest of the world and get rid of feet, pounds, hogsheads, gills and all of the other bizarre units left over from the British. The laws requiring certain government projects to be in metric units remain on the books, though nearly everything else that was supposed to make the change in daily life was halted. I read that over half the states had already put up metric road signs by 1996 and then had to change them all over again.

The reason for the continued use of SI at the gov't level is that they didn't want to keep two sets of standards, given the amount of international business involved in many projects. The rest of the world has been leaning on us more and more about conversion since English-measured goods are pretty well useless to anyone trying to import from the U.S.

And lest anyone start the flames about "them #$&! furriners tellin' us what to do", there are good conservative economic reasons for ditching English units. Maybe 30% of the trade deficit is due to measurement incompatibilities (source: American Association for the Advancement of Science), plus there's 10s of billions in "frictional" losses within the U.S. simply because it takes longer to calculate in SAE and it's easier to make mistakes. Quick - what's half of 7-3/16" ?? What wrench size is in between 3/4" and 7/8" ??

What wrench size is in between 3/4" and 7/8" ??

13/16ths, but I know of no such wrench...

Regardless, if we go metric, we have to declare standard gauge to no longer be 4' 8.5", but 143.51cm. When we do that, the terrorists win!

Sorry, just had to do it.....http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product. ... 0944583000

Case in point -- how confusing would it be to say you need a 2.06375 cm wrench, when you can just say 13/16" ?

Anyway, heading back to the topic... route 56 dead, SEPTA evil, buses bad, cars worse, trolleys good.

OK, one last diversion: standard gauge is neither SAE nor metric, but Roman, probably XVII 1/2 cubits or something. And direct translation of SAE items into SI is a non-sequitur since full conversion eventually replaces everything with nice whole-number amounts (e.g. you'd never see a 20.6mm wrench any more than you now see 1.377952" film, LOL)

Now back to topic. Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle. Allll aaabbooaarrdd!!

If I had to guess I'd say that the plans were in metric for the milling machine. If it was a Wirtgen or similar european make then it's likely they just kept the units in metric to avoid confusion. For all I know all pavement milling machines could be in metric just to keep everything universal. It's a bit OT, but for an excellent page on pavement milling (as well as other sections on everything else roadbuilding), I'd recommend the following link:
http://hotmix.ce.washington.edu/wsdot_w ... 2_body.htm

Returning to the original topic, I rode out to Frankford today (got stopped by 9 people for pics, but that's another matter). I hadn't been out there for a long time, but I didn't realize that Erie still has tracks. There's a return loop right there, so theoretically only Torresdale needs to be rebuilt for a return by SEPTA's trolleys. In fact if we were to be really lazy SEPTA could just run all trolleys between the loop by the Frankford El to the eastern end and run all short-turned 56s as trolleys while the rest of the line is upgraded and temporarily run as a bus service.