Is the Trolley diversion every summer?

There was a time, I was on the 11 Trolley and it went it's normal route until it got to the 40th Street Portal Terminal. Instead of going into the tunnel as usual, it made a turn down Spruce Street, went through this... highway thing (it wasn't a highway highway, just a wide busy street with lots of traffic) and then it's last stop on the diverted line was some hospital. Then if we wanted to, we could make the free interchange to the Market Frankford line without paying at the turnstile.

That actually was kind of fun! I did get a little nervous because I didn't know where the Trolley was going but it was kind of fun having some sightseeing of that side of Philadelphia. Needless to say that i like the diverted route better than the tunnel route.

As far as i can remember, nothing was broken in the Trolley tunnel, they just had to do some upgrades and maintenance work. Will that happen again this summer too? Is the Trolley diversion every summer?

The trolleys going through Spruce Street is some adventure!

Trolleys divert for unforeseen circumstances and at night, though I'm not sure of the exact times. So the diversion is a frequent occurrence. There has been some bigger maintenance going on recently in the tunnel though. It's expected to be finished in 2017, so you might luck out and catch some more diverted services.

http://septa.org/rebuilding/right-of-wa ... unnel.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

it's a safe bet that the trolleys will be on the diversion route every sunday night after ten pm until 6 am

Riding the diversion trackage in daylight is an unusual side of railfanning, since except for scheduled maintenance it's impossible to predict. If there's going to be a sustained diversion period somebody will probably post something about it on here--just check every once in a while.

SEPTA has been well-pleased with the two-week-long diversions in early August the past two years. With that much time, there's a lot of opportunity to get things done in the tunnels, without losing so much time to setup and teardown. I would expect it to happen again in the late July/early August period this year.

It is now reported that the subway is to be closed from 10 pm Friday, July 8 until 4 am Monday, July 18 for another "Tunnel Blitz," meaning that the diversion trackage will be used during that time.

The tunnel "blitz" has been postponed indefinitely as Septa deals with the SLV debacle.

A wise move for sure, given the El is often at crush loads when there is a shutdown in the trolley tunnel for the seemingly regular disabled trolleys. We can only hope that the rest of the system including trolleys and the subways have good reliability whilst Septa deals with this SLV problem, as a major issue on another line is going to really throw a wrench into things.

The major test might be for the DNC coming up in a few weeks...

Most of the festivities (?) will be at the Wells Fargo Center. The BSS will bear most of the ridership brunt; we have to hope that the southern half of the line won't be as heavily affected because it's less of an alternative to any RRD lines. Of course commuters could be taking I-95 and competing for park & ride spots. No matter what, it ain't gonna be pretty.

Plus the Key is still in its teething stages. Anyone from out of town will be in for a surprise when they bump up against an early-20th-century fare system. Maybe the DNC will buy a couple of barrels of tokens - ???

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2016/0 ... he-weekend" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Looks like a "Trolley Blitz" is happening, albeit in a truncated form and just for this coming weekend...

Starting at 10 p.m. Friday (June 15th) SEPTA will stop running trolleys through the Center City Tunnel for the weekend.

Every summer, SEPTA runs what’s called their annual Trolley Tunnel Blitz. It usually stops all trolley service through the Center City Tunnel for about two weeks so crews can do maintenance and construction work, but this year the shut down will be much shorter.

[...]

This year’s trolley tunnel blitz was shortened because of the current situation involving regional rail lines being short on passenger cars.

Trolley service through the Center City Tunnel will resume Monday morning.

http://www.septa.org/rebuilding/2016-tr ... blitz.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Modified Trolley Blitz announcement for the remainder of this month starting this weekend on August 12th.