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The Philadelphia Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society Established in 1936
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Railfan Pictures of the Week - 11/02/2008
| SEPTA Landale Station Lansdale PA October 31 2008 |
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| After the Phillies beat the Rays on Wednesday night and the World Series parade down Broad Street was scheduled for Friday noon, the estimates of the crowds attending were in the one to two million range, so the call went out recommending that fans use mass transit into the city. Well, the call was heeded and then some. Early in the morning the trains heading into center city were already packed at the outlying stations, forcing them to bypass stations closer to town. Then the passengers waiting for inbound trains started boarding outbound trains, so that the outbounds were arriving at the end of the line already filled. SEPTA pressed every working piece of equipment they had and every crew available, but it still was not enough. |
| At Lansdale shortly before 10:00 over a thousand people were in and around the station, with traffic backed up throughout town. Parking in the area is at a premium on normal weekdays, and the onslaught of vehicles occupied every spot within several blocks of the station. Up and down the line, every station was packed, with overflow crowds reported at Colmar, Link Belt, Chalfont and Doylestown. Huge crowds were also reported on other lines at Oreland, Glenside, Jenkintown, Neshaminy Falls, Somerton and Philmont and many many others. |
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| Outbound trains started discharge only runs to Doylestown to get the empty trains to the end of the line, but still it wasn't enough. This train departed Doylestown about 9:35, leaving 300-400 passengers waiting at the station for another extra that it passed at Forest Siding near Chalfont. Also on the Chalfont siding behind the Doyletown Extra was a Chalfont Extra that was to turn at Forest and pick up travel from Chalfont, Link Belt, Colmar and Fortuna stations. Although this train and many others were running non-stop into the city, it was slow going as they had to run restricted speed through all the intermediate stations due to the close proximity to the rails of many of the would-be passengers. There were reports of people standing in front of trains and objects thrown at those not stopping. At Lansdale, the non-stop trains were being held at CP Land where they would call the dispatcher who would activate the gates at Main Street. It was feared if the train slowed down too much or had to stop, people would have tried get on board in any way possible. |
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| The line for tickets was out the door, which was ironic since every train was standing room only with no room for the crews to move (some had only one or two conductors anyway), tickets were not being collected on many trains. |
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All pictures October 31 2008 Copyright © 2008 John P. Almeida Photographs for personal use only. All rights reserved by original owner of image. Reproduction or redistribution in any form without express written permission is prohibited. |
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Last Updated November 2, 2008
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Website created June 12, 2002
Website copyright © 2007 John P. Almeida
