Railroad Forums 

  • Norristown High Speed Line

  • Discussion relating to Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (Philadelphia Metro Area). Official web site can be found here: www.septa.com. Also including discussion related to the PATCO Speedline rapid transit operated by Delaware River Port Authority. Official web site can be found here: http://www.ridepatco.org/.
Discussion relating to Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (Philadelphia Metro Area). Official web site can be found here: www.septa.com. Also including discussion related to the PATCO Speedline rapid transit operated by Delaware River Port Authority. Official web site can be found here: http://www.ridepatco.org/.

Moderator: AlexC

 #1510159  by CarterB
 
I remember, and rode on the Strafford cars, Brill Bullet cars and even Liberty Liners. Those were the days...and speeds as always.
 #1510194  by JeffK
 
Yup, I think I managed to ride every type of car that had been acquired since the Straffords. The Liberty Liners were beyond awesome, but the service they were intended to provide of course never materialized. The M4s and CTA's were (putting it bluntly) the 180° opposite of awesome but they kept the line going in between the Bullets' demise and the N5s' arrival.

I really wonder what we’d have today if the Strafford branch had hung on longer and if the line to Exton had been built. In typical fashion, the justification for both failures was lack of demand at the time rather than considering future growth.
 #1510248  by ExCon90
 
JeffersonLeeEng wrote:Current NHSL schedule only has a smattering of Limited and Express runs due to construction of the station at Ithan Ave (near Villanova Stadium) and other trackwork up and down the line. It's pretty much slow going right now...so yeah...

Also, due to accidents and that one major crash at 69th Street, they've really limited the max speed lately...

https://www.septa.org/schedules/transit/pdf/nhsl.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Just for comparison, I checked Ron De Graw's Pig & Whistle* for speeds of the Bullet cars in bygone days:
1930-1933 - Limited (Bryn Mawr and Bridgeport only) 16 minutes end-to-end; Express 19minutes;
1943-1953 - Express 21 min. northbound, 22 min. southbound.
The first Bullets delivered could do 90 mph, reduced to 80 mph for the remainder of the order, the first ones being reduced accordingly, and there were very few speed reductions for curves, etc. The author could be heard lamenting the speed reductions of later years.

* Bulletin 140, Central Electric Railfans' Association, ISBN 978-0-915348-40-4.
 #1510328  by JeffK
 
It's long gone (or stored in the attic, same thing!) but I had some early-60s schedule that also featured Limiteds with comparable end-to-end times, around 17 or 18 minutes.

The much-missed Mr. Trolley, Al Ricketts, reportedly pushed Bullet 207 to 86 mph on a fan trip. Must've been a heck of a hoot!