The Philadelphia Chapter of the

National Railway Historical Society

Established in 1936

A reply to an email entitled "Different forms of road transport" sent to SEPTA General Manager Joseph M. Casey by John H. Zebedee from Crawley UK (recently posted on PhillyTraction Yahoogroup):

"Street Trolley service was discontinued on a number of SEPTA routes due to reliability and the age of the vehicles. Reliability on these routes had been poor at best. Since the trolley operated on the same street and vehicular traffic, double parking, vehicle accidents, wire teardown from delivery trucks made the service so unreliable, discontinuation was the only solution. Three years ago SEPTA restored the Route 15, trolley service that operates on a wide street but again with other vehicles. Restoration of the other routes were dependent on the performance of this route. While we are still assessing this route, its' on-time performance is below our bus routes and frequently the line is out of service due to the above factors. We do not always have sufficient bus capacity to replace these trolley and our riders end up without service. Due to our experiences, we have concluded trolley service requires a dedicated right-of-way to operate effectively on the streets of Philadelphia."

All pictures 1992 and 1996 Copyright © 2008 John P. Almeida

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