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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 - 10/25/2015
| SEPTA Main Line Lansdale and Philadelphia PA September 25 and 26 2015 |
| In preparation for the Papal Visit to Philadelphia, SEPTA ran a Saturday schedule on its Regional Rail lines on Friday September 25 and started staging six car trains at or near the eighteen stations that would be used to provide service on Saturday and Sunday. In Lansdale, a pair of Silverliner IV trains were parked on the industrial and the runner, and another sat in the MU yard. |
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| Saturday dawned and the crowds did not show up as expected. At Pennbrook Station, SEPTA had leased most of the adjacent office park. The area along Church Road was sectioned off as a staging area for the passengers, with parking in the lots in the back. About twenty porta-potties were also on site but were probably used only by the dozens of SEPTA and emergency personnel on hand. |
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| Four staging zones had been roped off, each designed to hold about 700 people, the capacity of one train. Departures were scheduled at every thirty minutes. On the former Reading side, the passenger traffic was one way into Jefferson Station from 5:30 until 12:30, with empty trains departing the city and returning to the outlying stations as fast as possible. On the Pennsy side, most passengers were dropped off at Thirtieth Street Station or University City with the Airport line the only SEPTA Regional Rail offering round trip service through the tunnel. |
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| Despite the signs, there were no delays as the sparse crowds passed quickly through each zone to the waiting train. Total time from parking to boarding was 5 minutes, or about as fast as we could walk the roundabout circuit that had been laid out to handle ten thousand people. |
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| Once in the city, the streets, devoid of almost all vehicle traffic, were quite inviting. |
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| Good to see the infrastructure for Route 23 is still intact. Too bad we may never see a trolley here again. |
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| The signs for the staging areas for the outbound trips |
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All pictures September 25 and 26, 2015 Copyright © 2015 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 October 25, 2015
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