The Ultmiate Regional Rail System

R1-same
R2-Wilmington-New Hope via Ivyland RR
R3-Kennet Sq via Octorio line-West Trenton
R4-Allentown via R5 route-West Chester via new PA route 3 ROW
R5-Landcaster-Doylestown
R6-Reading via NS line-Northeast Via Rt 1 ROW
R7-Same
R8-Newtown-CHW


For any explanation, just ask.

I'll bite. Explain. We'd all love to hear it.

R2 extention:
The R2 gets extended along the New Hope and Ivyland RR to New Hope. Inital service is about 10 trains per rush hour one way. Line is eventually double tracked and runs full service when ridership is proven.

R3 extention:
The R3 is sent down the Octorio line to Kennet Sq (eventually Oxford).

R4 Line: the line runs along the R5 Doylestown to Lansdale(stops at R5 stops as well). Then runs along Quakertown line to Allentown. Runs as rush hour service initally. Then expanded to full service.

R5 extention:
R5 is sent along the PRR line to Landcaster. R5 runs expresses to Landcaster with locals going to Paoli.

R6 extention:
R6 sent along the NS line to Reading. Then, the Cynwyd line runs along City Line Ave and Roosevelt Blvd via center median (ala light rail) to Southampton.

R8 extention:
Line run along the Newtown line to Newtown.




Eventually, all lines served 24/7, with rush hour/midday intervals at 10-15, weekends and evenings 20/30 and 60 minutes late night.


This will require capital investment, but will help encourage better transit oriented development. And this will help to open up new areas for growth in Philadelphia.

It's Lancaster, not Landcaster! Come on, say it with me -- Lancaster! Lancaster! Lancaster!

(Nothing personal, I just lived there for 11 years. After awhile we'd get sick of the tourists and Philly people mispronouncing it. )

As to one of the items you addressed in your post...

R6 extention:
Then, the Cynwyd line runs along City Line Ave and Roosevelt Blvd via center median (ala light rail) to Southampton.

Will that be an elevated or an underground track? If it's ground level, who gets right of way, the trains or the cars? (particularly when traffic on the Boulevard has those left turn arrows... there's a disaster waiting to happen...)

What about pedestrian crossings? Making a turn at Roosevelt & Red Lion and Roosevelt & Grant is murder; I'd hate to have to walk across those intersections, too.

In general, though, I think you've got some good ideas.

R3 Rider wrote:It's Lancaster, not Landcaster! Come on, say it with me -- Lancaster! Lancaster! Lancaster!

Be glad we're not trying to deal with Tredyffrin or Schuylkill.

While we're at it, that's extension and Octorara

But this is a railroad site, not Sister Mary Debby's English class. LOL

Your plans certainly do not lack for creativity, but they seem highly unlikely to be built. Why do would the residents of the Northeast want a regional rail train down the Boulevard when the locally prefered alternative was a branch off the Broad Street Subway? Why run a commuter train down Rt3 when there's a branch off the Octorara branch at Wawa which goes to West Chester and which only requires trackwork and cat work to be completed? I could see light rail down Rt 3 from 69th St Term out to Broomall to fill the gap between the Rt100 and Rt101, but going so far as to spend that much money on running your proposed R4 out there is a bit of a waste. Why not change the R1? Right now it's a toss-up as to where the R1 will go on the Reading side of the CCCT, why not add a line or rearrange things so as to pin the R1 to a specific line?

I'm a bit unclear as to what you'd do with the current Cynwyd Branch, it sounds like you'd have it become light rail just like most of the SVM proposals. IMHO this is a mistake as the Cynwyd branch provides perhaps the best solution to getting diesel hauled commuter trains from Reading and Quakertown into 30th St Station. Light Rail from City Line Ave into Center City via the Cynwyd branch also has to find it's own way downtown. Following the Rt10 trolley would be a massive step backwards for the line, crawling from 52nd St down to 36th St Portal. One possiblity would be to run the Cynwyd Light Rail down into the City Subway Branch via the Rt10 and Rt15 trolley lines, but that'd really only be practical if the Reading line is electrified all the way to Wyoming Station, and if CSX grants SEPTA permission to utilize more than half their ROW.

Wdobner wrote:One possiblity would be to run the Cynwyd Light Rail down into the City Subway Branch via the Rt10 and Rt15 trolley lines...

What about the gauge difference? I assume that a Cynwyd Light Rail line would have to be cut off from any RRD connections and regauged if it is to connect with the existing trolley system.

Also, restoring rail service down Route 3 would also be very difficult even if the funding were there. The fiasco that ripped up the West Chester trolley line a half-century ago has effectively blocked any practical rail routing from 69th St. to well west of Sproul Road. The median is interrupted by turnouts at nearly every intersection, so you'd have to either shift the through lanes to allow for both rails and turnouts, or put rails down one side. Either alternative would clobber so many homes and businesses that there'd be a revolt. Plus, traffic control for grade crossings every block would be a major nightmare. That leaves running the line as an elevated or underground, with all the attendant problems they would have in a suburban environment.

Basically we're screwed by decisions made generations ago.

A few things.

I don't really know too much about it, but is the guage difference too little between standard and broad gauge to allow for dual guaging. I'm pretty sure when it comes to subways other issues regarding tunnel size, platform size, and third rail placement preclude such an arrangement, but would it matter in an open cut?

Would it be impractical to simply run trolleys in the inner lanes of West chester Pike, while retaining the turnouts? Any street running relies to some degree on drivers not being idiots, and cutting off a multi-ton trolley is pretty dumb. Seems to me like it might be a better idea to keep the trolley in traffic, it might be a bit slower and stop and go, but it all but guarantees the trolley is visible, as opposed to flying up the median.

Its probably not a tenable project in political, social, or economic terms anyway. While I fully agree with the assesment that West Chester Pike and Roosevelt Boulevard are two corridors highly deserving of transit. Unfortunately, I fear massive cost overruns on Boston's Big Dig and Los Angeles' Red Line have soured much chance of urban infrastructure investment. Without some major impetus driving people to rail transportation, not too much is going to happen. Hundred Dollar barrels of oil might do the trick, but with the Oil/Auto Cartel in charge, we'll more likely see further tax breaks for sixty thousand dollar commuter tanks that get 6 gallons to the mile.

stuff like that makes me feel bitter inside

JeffK wrote:

R3 Rider wrote:It's Lancaster, not Landcaster! Come on, say it with me -- Lancaster! Lancaster! Lancaster!

Be glad we're not trying to deal with Tredyffrin or Schuylkill.

While we're at it, that's extension and Octorara

But this is a railroad site, not Sister Mary Debby's English class. LOL

Not to drag us back to English class, but its "Octoraro." Name of the creek, which gave the name to the PRR branch, which gave the name to the shortline railroad, and now gives the name to the branch again (since that shortline is no more).

Wdobner wrote:Your plans certainly do not lack for creativity, but they seem highly unlikely to be built. Why do would the residents of the Northeast want a regional rail train down the Boulevard when the locally prefered alternative was a branch off the Broad Street Subway? Why run a commuter train down Rt3 when there's a branch off the Octorara branch at Wawa which goes to West Chester and which only requires trackwork and cat work to be completed? I could see light rail down Rt 3 from 69th St Term out to Broomall to fill the gap between the Rt100 and Rt101, but going so far as to spend that much money on running your proposed R4 out there is a bit of a waste. Why not change the R1? Right now it's a toss-up as to where the R1 will go on the Reading side of the CCCT, why not add a line or rearrange things so as to pin the R1 to a specific line?

I'm a bit unclear as to what you'd do with the current Cynwyd Branch, it sounds like you'd have it become light rail just like most of the SVM proposals. IMHO this is a mistake as the Cynwyd branch provides perhaps the best solution to getting diesel hauled commuter trains from Reading and Quakertown into 30th St Station. Light Rail from City Line Ave into Center City via the Cynwyd branch also has to find it's own way downtown. Following the Rt10 trolley would be a massive step backwards for the line, crawling from 52nd St down to 36th St Portal. One possiblity would be to run the Cynwyd Light Rail down into the City Subway Branch via the Rt10 and Rt15 trolley lines, but that'd really only be practical if the Reading line is electrified all the way to Wyoming Station, and if CSX grants SEPTA permission to utilize more than half their ROW.

No, not a light Rail. The actual R6 train would turn up City line ave and then run over to Roosevelt Blvd. Then the trains would run along Roosevelt Blvd to Southampton or even Neshaminy Mall. This alternative is cheaper becasue you would simply be putting tracks over the centermost lanes of the expressway and using the median as the stations. The trains would control the intersection via signal tech making all traffic red when a train passes by. Then everything is normal after the train passes. This gives the R6 Reading a high-frequency turnaround that puts the trains to use. Cynwyd or the Airport alone couldn't provide that. And building the BSS presents two very serious problems:

1)SEPTA isn't anywhere close to getting the funding for new subways. Getting money for an El is a stretch, and the residents wouldn't go for that. At least RR is cheaper and can have the same carrying capacity.


2) I dont' mean to be racial (I'm half-Black BTW), but the BSS runs through the ghetto. And people of all stripes are not gonna want to either take a train, or have the train in their neighborhood provide access to the ghetto. Many NEerners would see this as uncorking the area for complete and utter decline and destruction. If Philly loses the NE tax base, the whole city is screwed. So the BSS might not be a super idea.

Wdobner wrote:Your plans certainly do not lack for creativity, but they seem highly unlikely to be built. Why do would the residents of the Northeast want a regional rail train down the Boulevard when the locally prefered alternative was a branch off the Broad Street Subway? Why run a commuter train down Rt3 when there's a branch off the Octorara branch at Wawa which goes to West Chester and which only requires trackwork and cat work to be completed? I could see light rail down Rt 3 from 69th St Term out to Broomall to fill the gap between the Rt100 and Rt101, but going so far as to spend that much money on running your proposed R4 out there is a bit of a waste. Why not change the R1? Right now it's a toss-up as to where the R1 will go on the Reading side of the CCCT, why not add a line or rearrange things so as to pin the R1 to a specific line?

I'm a bit unclear as to what you'd do with the current Cynwyd Branch, it sounds like you'd have it become light rail just like most of the SVM proposals. IMHO this is a mistake as the Cynwyd branch provides perhaps the best solution to getting diesel hauled commuter trains from Reading and Quakertown into 30th St Station. Light Rail from City Line Ave into Center City via the Cynwyd branch also has to find it's own way downtown. Following the Rt10 trolley would be a massive step backwards for the line, crawling from 52nd St down to 36th St Portal. One possiblity would be to run the Cynwyd Light Rail down into the City Subway Branch via the Rt10 and Rt15 trolley lines, but that'd really only be practical if the Reading line is electrified all the way to Wyoming Station, and if CSX grants SEPTA permission to utilize more than half their ROW.

Addressing the Rt3 line issue: The R4 could run along the R3 Media line, then along the old R3 line to West Chester.

The 3 ideas that I haven't gotten any feedback on are:

R4 to Quakertown/Allentown
R6 to Reading
R2 to New Hope


Do you think these ideas are any good? Tell me what you think.

octr202 wrote:Not to drag us back to English class, but it's "Octoraro."

Urghhhhh. I'm giving myself 10 lashes with a wet timetable. I thought I had checked it out before posting.

Bensalem SEPTA rider wrote:The 3 ideas that I haven't gotten any feedback on are:

R4 to Quakertown/Allentown
R6 to Reading
R2 to New Hope


Do you think these ideas are any good? Tell me what you think.

R4 to Allentown/Bethlehem is awesome. I think everyone here (unless there are some SEPTA board members lurking about) can agree that the Lehigh Valley is an underserved area that could well support a commuter rail line.

R2 to New Hope is something I've considered before, too, as I'm sure many posters to this forum have. I think it would be great for commuters, and even better for weekend excursionists.

R6 to Reading would be sweet, and I think this is one of the options being considered for the SVM, but I could be wrong.

What is unsaid above is, of course, that none of these lines have electricity, and SEPTA is short-sighted and cheap, and etc. etc. etc. I despair of this 'perfect system' ever existing, but I'd love to see it someday. Except for that R6 Cynwyd extension up the Boulevard. That's just wacky.