East Portal for Green Line

Was there ever Green Line service East of the City Hall Loop? It looks as if there are tunnel extensions from the 13th Street station that lead North (?) from the station, but are either stubs or blocked tunnels.

Also, is there an Eastern Poratal for the Green Line to serve East/North/South Philly?

The subway-surface lines never ran east of the City Hall loop. I've noticed the same portal and my guess is that it is part of a never-completed extension.

There are a few other places where there are unused tunnels, such as the one that supposedly was to be used for an Arch Street line and the station that was prepared under the old Sears Building decades ago for the yet and future Roosevelt Blvd. line.

I think that once was a storage track to quickly move a disabled trolley out of the way.

That little stub at 13th street is just for emergency storage and was never meant for anything else. I am almost positive that it isn't original, and that means that it was either built when the el was rerouted through city hall or when the new westbound 15th street station opened or when they had to slightly relocate the north side of the loop when the center city commuter tunnel was built. As far as other portals go, the original portal was at 23-24th street along with the el. The tunnel extention was openned in the fifties i believe.

Sean@Temple

Sean@Temple wrote:That little stub at 13th street is just for emergency storage and was never meant for anything else. ... As far as other portals go, the original portal was at 23-24th street along with the el. The tunnel extension was opened in the fifties I believe.

Thanks to everyone for clearing up the mystery. And yes, the tunnel to the new portal at 46th St. was opened in the 1950s. Does anyone know why that location was chosen? Was it planned that way, or was it another case where construction stopped when the budget ran out?

When you ride the el westbound,just past 40th St,You'll notice at where the El turns there is a section of the tunnel that goes straight,there was talk of one time about extending the tunnel just past 63rd St where it would re surface at continue to Millbourne and 69th St.It never materialized due to the lack of funding and the tunnel extension opened in Nov.1955.There is this book called "The Road From Upper Darby" which explains alot and is a very good source of information and is availible at the Transit Store at 1234.On the Eastern End,I heard that one time that the Sub Surface was supposed to go East to the river,but I dont know if that unused tunnel just past Juniper was a part of that or not.

Matthew Mitchell wrote:I think that once was a storage track to quickly move a disabled trolley out of the way.

Couldn't be. I was in the tunnel the other day and someone left a 'suspicious package' on one of the trolleys and they just left it in the way of the oncoming trolleys until some bozo came to claim it.

Plus, I don't think that there is trolley wire in that stub.

Septaman113 wrote:On the Eastern End,I heard that one time that the Sub Surface was supposed to go East to the river,but I dont know if that unused tunnel just past Juniper was a part of that or not.

On the western end, a number of years ago there was talk of extending the subway-surface tunnel all the way to Darby. I never saw anything about how they would have dealt with Routes 34,36, and 13, but I do remember the proposal.

Prior to the 1956 opening of the current tunnel, the subway-surface routes were 10, 11, 31,34,37 and 38. When the extension opened, 31 and 38 were bustituted, 37 was bustituted and changed to run from South Philly to Chester ( its original western terminus) and replaced in the subway, and south of Elmwood Ave & Island Rd. by Route 36. The eastern end of Route 13 was diverted into the subway from Chestnut and Walnut Streets. At the same time the all surface Route 42 on Spruce Street- Chestnut and Walnut Streets was bustituted. A number of other streetcar routes were bustituted and the 1923-26 8000 and 5200 series conventional cars retired ( the 5200's were the last double ended cars to run in the city) and the remaining streetcar system became all PCC.

there is a wire in the stub at 13th street but no frog (a connection of the main wire and the stub wire). they have to get out and manually move the trolley pole.

Sean@Temple

I never heard of the proposal to extend the Sub Surface tunnel to Darby.That must have been a while ago.Although before my time ,I do know about the 31,37 and 38 trolley routes and the 13 running down Chestnut St.In fact,the 37 used to go all the way to Chester and then it was cut back and re numbered the 36,I think.Take care.

Septaman113 wrote:I never heard of the proposal to extend the Sub Surface tunnel to Darby.That must have been a while ago.Although before my time ,I do know about the 31,37 and 38 trolley routes and the 13 running down Chestnut St.In fact,the 37 used to go all the way to Chester and then it was cut back and re numbered the 36,I think.Take care.

That Darby proposal was never very serious, I heard about it sometime in the 1960's.----- The 37 was originally the Chester Short Line. It was cut back from Chester in 1946 after a trolley collided with a gasoline truck on the Crum Creek Bridge with the resulting fire destroying the trolley, the truck AND the bridge.-- 36 existed along with the 37 and was the route which used Elmwood Ave. ( 37 ran on Woodland Ave along with 11 and 12) When the subway was extended, and 37 was bustitued and relocated, 36 remained on Elmwood Ave but picked up the Eastwick and subway portions of 37, leaving 11 the only revenue service on Woodland Ave, as the No.12 was also bustitued and cut back to 50th & Woodland.