Rail Passenger Service (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown: 2013, lease, house)

[Explorer Dave]

I am again thinking of the Lehigh Valley. I like living in smaller communities with good walkability close to major cites, I also like hills and a valley setting. The Lehigh Valley seems like a really good fit for all that. I was just looking at RI and CT but no mountains in the areas I was interested in.

One thing that is holding me back though is lack of rail service to the big cities. I have consigned myself to the idea that I will need a car in a smaller community even in a very walkible one. BUT I really don't wan't to take one into major cities (well depends on need actually, but not for most trips I would see it as a hassle.) I would think that rail service and creating pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented housing near station stops and redeveloping struggling commercial and retail areas would be a perfect fit for the type of more sustainable growth I have been seeing that LHV leaders want.

Heck that is even happening in Florida (where I live now) the land of unbridled sprawl, with Sunrail Station Development :: SunRail - Changing the Way Central Florida Travels If it can happen here it should be a real no brainier in the Lehigh Valley!

[Explorer Dave]

Never mind, I found several very informative posts on this in another thread by PacoMartin. It is unfortunate that what was once there was ripped out. But the buses sound like a workable option.

[toobusytoday]

I take a train from Lansdale into Philly, but it's about a 40 minute drive to the train station.

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by Explorer Dave

Never mind, I found several very informative posts on this in another thread by PacoMartin. It is unfortunate that what was once there was ripped out. But the buses sound like a workable option.

Thank you for the compliment.

To review:
December 1983 trains stopped to Lehigh Valley from New York city.
November 1989, the rail line between Alpha and Phillipsburg was severed during construction of I-78.
It was determined that service restoration will take approximately four years and cost $90 million.

The extremely low ridership on the extension west of Raritan suggests that the trains are not competing with buses that far west. These 5 stations are among the least used on the NJ rail network. Frankly, it must be a money losing operation.

Now I know that there are plenty of calls to improve service. But bottom line, the only way to make a big improvement is to have the trains go straight into Manhattan without having to change in Newark. The new locomotives that can run diesel and electric * are only part of the problem as the tunnels under Hudson are hopelessly overtaxes.

Until these stations become comparable to other NJ train stations, it is almost pointless to think of extending this line even further west.

FY 2012 RARITAN VALLEY LINE (Average Weekday Passenger Boardings)
5,594 Newark Penn
1,355 Union
845 Roselle Park
1,264 Cranford
83 Garwood
2,376 Westfield
974 Fanwood
546 Netherwood
893 Plainfield
945 Dunellen
622 Bound Brook
336 Bridgewater
677 Somerville
638 Raritan
<===================== Raritan Valley Extensions (westernmost stations)
72 North Branch
110 White House
21 Lebanon
82 Annandale
72 High Bridge

* You can't run a diesel locomotive under the Hudson River as it is a fire hazard. You must get off a diesel train in Newark Station and switch to the PATH or Northeast Corridor train.

[pman]

Originally Posted by toobusytoday

I take a train from Lansdale into Philly, but it's about a 40 minute drive to the train station.

perhaps most annoyingly, SEPTa actually owns the right of way between lansdale and bethlehem yet it's not in service.

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-l...2.story?page=2

[BPP1999]

Originally Posted by pman

perhaps most annoyingly, SEPTa actually owns the right of way between lansdale and bethlehem yet it's not in service.

Lehigh Valley Planning Commission to study rails - Page 2 - mcall.com

I actually read that article yesterday - perfect link for this post.

Interestingly enough, during the Lehigh Valley's heyday, there was train service to Bethlehem, and even Allentown, as stated above. Nowadays, it's not necessarily that service restoration is not wanted, but there are funding issues. Also, SEPTA (the Southeastern PA Transportation Authority) has a long, interesting, sordid, and somewhat fascinating story. Its predecessors include the Reading RR and the Pennsylvania RR and the sprawling, magnificent rail systems they built were literally falling apart when their passenger service lines were folded into SEPTA in the late 70's. They used to compete with each other and built all of these sophisticated show-off systems but couldn't upkeep them. In some parts of Southeastern PA there were competing lines, i.e. the Reading RR's line to Reading and the PRR's line to Reading were literally 10 feet apart from each other in some places. Imagine that. Now all that's left of the 60-mile Reading passenger line has been truncated to 20 miles and stops in Norristown.

You can google "SEPTA diesel service" for a good article in Wikipedia. It's sad that these rail lines were cut over 30 years ago, but there is renewed interest in service restoration and the stars are slowly aligning. Above Quakertown SEPTA leased the line for a trail so that section of the service may be more of a long shot but it's not unreasonable to see restored service back to Quakertown (which you could drive to from the LV in 10-15 minutes, depending on where you lived).

Also, ExplorerDave, you bring up a good point because I believe when SEPTA cancelled it's Bethlehem service, that made the LV the most populated area in the country to not have any passenger service.

You could simply move to the LV and start banging on your politician's doors in support of passenger service restoration. I have actually done this and even received a call-back the next day from my state rep. They are very aware of this issue. Hopefully both parties will come together in Harrisburg and agree to a real infrastructure funding solution which will provide some $ for trains. It's also interesting to consider that if SEPTA restored service to the LV, there would be that many more taxpayers, and politicians, in PA that are served by SEPTA, which would bode well for them.

[pman]

Originally Posted by BPP1999

Interestingly enough, during the Lehigh Valley's, there was train service to Bethlehem, and even Allentown, as stated above. Nowadays, it's not necessarily that service restoration is not wanted, but there are funding issues. Also, SEPTA (the Southeaster PA Transportation Authority) has a long, interesting, sordid, and somewhat fascinating story. Its predecessors include the Reading RR and the Pennsylvania RR and the sprawling, magnificent rail systems they built were literally falling apart when their passenger service lines were folded into SEPTA in the late 70's. They used to compete with each other and built all of these sophisticated show-off systems but couldn't upkeep them. In some parts of Southeastern PA there were competing lines, i.e. the Reading RR's line to Reading and the PRR's line to Reading were literally 10 feet apart from each other in some places. Imagine that. Now all that's left of the 60-mile Reading passenger line has been truncated to 20 miles and stops in Norristown.

You can google "SEPTA diesel service" for a good article in Wikipedia. It's sad that these rail lines were cut over 30 years ago, but there is renewed interest in service restoration and the stars are slowly aligning. Above Quakertown SEPTA leased the line for a trail so that section of the service may be more of a long shot but it's not unreasonable to see restored service back to Quakertown (which you could drive to from the LV in 10-15 minutes, depending on where you lived).

If I'm not mistaken, since the Lehigh Valley is not part of SEPTA's charter, it can only operate service on a reimbursable (or profitable) basis. First the feds and then Penndot funded SEPTA service to allentown as well as newark (the crusader) but thornburgh killed state sponsored rail service and SEPTA's abandonment of the reading terminal meant the end fo days for diesel service. I'm not sure what sophisticated show off systems you are talking about, they were competing railroads in some markets but not all markets. their systems made sense and weren't built as show offs, railroads struggled mightily in the dark days of deindustrialization and regulation. It shouldn't be unreasonable to expect direct service into the lehigh valley (even the old bethlehem union station is intact) to be restored. the lehigh valley is the largest metro area in the northeast with no rail service.

[BPP1999]

Originally Posted by pman

If I'm not mistaken, since the Lehigh Valley is not part of SEPTA's charter, it can only operate service on a reimbursable (or profitable) basis. First the feds and then Penndot funded SEPTA service to allentown as well as newark (the crusader) but thornburgh killed state sponsored rail service and SEPTA's abandonment of the reading terminal meant the end fo days for diesel service. I'm not sure what sophisticated show off systems you are talking about, they were competing railroads in some markets but not all markets. their systems made sense and weren't built as show offs, railroads struggled mightily in the dark days of deindustrialization and regulation. It shouldn't be unreasonable to expect direct service into the lehigh valley (even the old bethlehem union station is intact) to be restored. the lehigh valley is the largest metro area in the northeast with no rail service.

An example of a show-off system is the Zoo Junction. It's a massive, fancy interlocking. For the record I know very little about this kind of stuff but I've read about it. The point is that certain things are very expensive to upkeep, and it's even harder to keep up 2 systems going to the same or similar places.

I agree with you - it is not unreasonable to expect direct service into the LV to be restored. The sprawl continues up past Q-Town and into the LV, plus with the new casino, it's needed.

[pman]

Originally Posted by BPP1999

An example of a show-off system is the Zoo Junction. It's a massive, fancy interlocking. For the record I know very little about this kind of stuff but I've read about it. The point is that certain things are very expensive to upkeep, and it's even harder to keep up 2 systems going to the same or similar places.

I agree with you - it is not unreasonable to expect direct service into the LV to be restored. The sprawl continues up past Q-Town and into the LV, plus with the new casino, it's needed.

Zoo interlocking is anything but a show off, it was a complex answer to a complex problem. it allowed two main lines (Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia to NY) to merge seamlessly, handling freight and passenger trains. Trains are "sorted" via zoo (or were) going to the port (high line), either to the upper level at 30th or lower level, the yards. some passenger and freight also bypassed 30th st heading due west via the NY Pittsburgh subway. each routing had redundance so that if there was a track outage, the heart of the railroad's operations didn't shut down. this was all PRR and had nothing to do with the reading.over the years they've ripped out the redundancy and reduced the freight connections. sure it's expensive but look at the schuylkill and 676, two limited access highways that connect over water.

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by BPP1999

Above Quakertown SEPTA leased the line for a trail so that section of the service may be more of a long shot but it's not unreasonable to see restored service back to Quakertown (which you could drive to from the LV in 10-15 minutes, depending on where you lived).

Also, ExplorerDave, you bring up a good point because I believe when SEPTA cancelled it's Bethlehem service, that made the LV the most populated area in the country to not have any passenger service.

The planned extension above Lansdale was shortened to only 8 miles and would stop Pennridge in summer 2011 because of low ridership potential. In other words it clearly won't get federal funding, so they are not even applying.

As recently as 2007 the plan was to extend SEPTA to Shelby (near Coopersburg) about a mile from Lehigh County line.
====================
The most populated area to have no passenger rail is Las Vegas, NV. In addition the passenger rail to Phoenix was discontinued and now stops in Maricopa, AZ (a 35 mile drive to Phoenix).

====================

The extension of the Raritan line to and High Bridge (Clinton) starting October 28 2007. In order to do that a new passing track near White House Station was constructed that allows for bi-directional train traffic west of Raritan Station.

From the boarding numbers I posted earlier, you can see that the line is very busy to Raritan, but the extension to Clinton is very lightly used. The hope is that with the new locomotives that run on either diesel or electric some trains in peak period will go straight through Newark and into Manhattan.