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A Streetcar City Reborn: The Rise, Fall and Rise Again of Philadelphia's Trolleys
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- čas přidán 6. 08. 2024
- On June 16th, 2024, after four years of waiting and wondering if they would ever be seen again, the SEPTA's Route 15 service on Girard Avenue in North Philadelphia were met with a long loved sight: A fleet of green and cream colored 1940s Streetcars began serving passengers again for the first time in four years. In revenue service. With cars that are nearing 80 years old. While a fantastic story in of itself, it's merely beginning of the latest chapter of the story of the trolleys and streetcars of Philadelphia. From the 1850s until now, it has been seen as a story of triumph and downfall, but now can be one of revival and hope for the future of transportation here.
They may be old, but they are the harbinger of the future, and this is but the tip of the iceberg of the push to revive the once mighty passenger rail services of the City of Brotherly Love, and it's a tale that deserves to be told as a new age of Philly transit begins.
Links to the sites about SEPTA Forward and the Trolley Modernization plan
wwww.septa.org/trolley-modern...
iseptaphilly.com/blog/newtrol...
wwww.septa.org/wp-content/upl...
wwww.septa.org/wp-content/upl...
Credit to Philadelphia Trolley Tracks, a website that chronicles the history of Philly's trolleys and was instrumental in making this video.
www.phillytrolley.org/index.html
Keywords: Trolley, Tram, Streetcar, Bus, Transit, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, Urban Planning, Public Transport, Trains, Light Rail, Trolleybus, History, SEPTA, Rise, Fall, Revival, City, PCC Streetcar
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:59 The Beginning of Philly's Trolleys
5:18 Route 15 and its Importance
8:55 From Glory to Collapse
13:38 Arrival of SEPTA
15:29 A System Going Down in Flames
19:52 The Unlikely Rebirth of Route 15
23:18 Turning Around 80 Years of decline in Four Years?
29:04 Restoring the Lost Lines
34:39 A Golden Opportunity
37:58 Conclusion
It's very generous of SEPTA to even restore these streetcars. Most railroads that owned these put them out of service a while ago. SEPTA clearly put their backs into making these things work again.
We pay for SEPTA
@dinahschuster6436 it's only cuz buying new cars is more expensive at the end of the day
@@yiannisd8286SEPTA is purchasing new Trolleys I believe starting in 2026 for the 10 11 13 15 34 36 101 & 102
@calinahernandez6775 yes I'm aware but this is the reason they've kept them and refurbished them before the plan for the new trolleys was even a thing
@@yiannisd8286They are supposed to get new rolling stock for the subway surface lines: 10, 11, 13, 34, 36.
Got me with the "grab yourself a cheesesteak and a wooder ice" 😂
As a lifelong Chicagoan, I've been riding public transit for as long as I can remember, and seeing how transit enables a car-free lifestyle and what that offers has really instilled within me a love for cities and public transportation. I gotta admit that Philly isn't a city I've spent a lot of time thinking about in my life. Until recently.
Thanks to videos like this and those by Alan Fisher, I can't believe I haven't paid more attention to Philly, especially considering how many similarities they share. It's a city I would love to move to someday. I interviewed for a job in Philly but didn't get it, but I'm still applying to companies in the area with the hope of maybe landing something there someday. Like many East Coast, Rust Belt, and Midwest cities, Philly has incredible bones and I'm glad to see SEPTA is really starting to build more on that foundation.
Its cool that Septa helped support the local trolley manufacturing as well, instead of outsourcing everything to the foreign companies. Hopefully they can trend that direction in the future. Made in PA on Philly lines.
Its really nice to see well put together video about transit in philly that isnt just a robot reading a wikipedia article. Some bus routes that are good contenders to become trolleys again are the 52(52nd Street), and 60(Allegheny Avenue) an maybe also turn the 42(Spruce street) into a subway surface line. Along with those a Washington Avenue trolley with median lanes really would help make it less hostile than it is now. I also believe that Routes 17, 23, 33, 45, 47 and some others would be better of as trolleybuses since they can maneuver the narrow streets of north and south Philly like a normal bus but still use overhead wires.
I would have thought the same with the 60 had the city not ripped up the remaining tracks along its line on Alleghany.
I always thought what set Philly apart from other cities was our trolleys, it was kinda sad when they got rid of them , I remember riding the 6 trolly as a kid and being so excited to ride the trolley
Not all of them.
@@yvonneplant9434 yeah my bad I meant the old surface trolleys
Thank you for pronouncing Lancaster correctly. That is all.
My family is originally from Philadelphia, I remember seeing the trolley tracks in the Mt. Airy section of the city, when we would visit my grandmother back in the early 70's. This IS definitely a step in the right direction. Awesome video!!!💜
The RT 23.
I grew up a few blocks from where the 23 would turn around in W Mt. Airy. The tracks were there for years, but are gone now and a medical practice has been in the building dor years.
@@EclecticDD Well howdy, neighbor from a different time...lol. I have a ton of great memories from visiting my grandmother in Mount airy.
restoring the trolley tracks may be expensive, but on the upside, seeing a trolley go by my window would be cool
Great informative video. Glad you identified the tyre, gas and motor vehicle connection with the 1950’s demise of trams and indeed, interurbans. Lot of new supporters don’t know about that corruption.
If only SEPTA had kept all those PCCs that they sold to San Francisco and the Market St. Railway. THEN they could REALLY have a Streetcar City.
16:33 - I parked my car at Cheltenham Mall, and rode the #6 trolley from Cheltenham Avenue to Olney ane back before the trolley ended. That 6 trolley had, years ago, ran to Willow Grove Park.
Love the old trolleys. It was a sad day when the 56 switched to busses. I remember when I was little in the 70's, all the busses and trolleys were that color green. Brings back memories of what definitely was a much better time in America, even though it certainly wasn't perfect.
Great video. I grew up in Media in the 70s and have great memories of riding the trolley.
the 15 running again goes against of my doomer inclinations of the future of Philly. I'm so glad they did it, and I think it's a good sign for the future of SEPTA as a whole, not just for its trolleys
I was very glad to see that philly has the 15 running again!
I was looking forward to it for months after they first announced a return on September. I actually wanted to make this video for that revival, but then they postponed it. It's been a long time coming for all of us.
Great video! I'm glad that peple still show interest in Philly's great and historical trolley system that we had. It's amazing to know that in the 30's, 40's and early 50's this city was covered in trolleys but sadly today you's NEVER know it unless you watched videos like this. SEPTA needs to relook at restoring the Route 23 (I know it's a pipe dream) and 56 (I STILL want to know WHY they got rid of THAT route) and a potential Delaware Ave/Columbus Blvd. trolley and I hope they do. (wishful thinking I KNOW!)
This video get the stamp of approval with the inclusion of the word "jawn."
Excellent job!
As both a lifelong railroad/trolley fan and resident of the Philadelphia suburbs, I was very excited when I read the news about these trolley cars being restored to service. Unfortunately, though, I don't have much cause to take this particular route, as all my relatives who lived in North Philly have either moved or passed away.
i’m excited for the new actual low floor trains for both Philadelphia and Boston. Makes them look like having a European Pre-metro system with modern and longer streetcar vehicles in underground stations. Though be interested if it will be really low floor or raised the platform at least.
Though also it would be cool with the Delaware/Columbus Trolley, could possibly have PATCO station from the Ben Frank bridge, if feasible
Omg I saw one of those yesterday, they're beautiful!!!
Yooooooooooo how awesome 😂😂😂 you got me getting off the route 15 bus at 38:59
Oh wow! Safe to say that's the first time someone accidentally recognized themselves in one of my videos (at least one where it wasn't intentional). Cool to see you there!
@@SteveGettingAroundPhilly it's funny cause I seen someone with a camera I work for septa myself. Cool video we have to meet and vlog together asap
Yes renaissance for the trolleys! Justice for route 23 on Germantown Ave❤ great video!
Man I wish nyc kept its streetcars
NYC ditched their trolley lines going the national city line route and destroyed the lines in favor of buses, that mimicked the trolley routes, they have sbs that are enforced dedicated bus lanes, a guy, bob diamond tried to get a short run in red hook Brooklyn and was shot down by the local politicians, a couple of pcc cars are wasting away in hopes of running again on this line. Unfortunately he passed away 2 years ago and the dream died with him. A BQ line was proposed but haven't heard about it in awhile. The MTA has many problems right now and that's not a priority since they lack funds for improvements that would have come from congestion pricing. The bottom line is politics, if they don't approve, it's not getting built. Unless they can personally make money on it , fugetaboutit!
Interesting! I live in a city that partly ripped out their entire network of tram lines. Berlin once had one of the largest tram networks in the world, peaking at 630 km in length. In the 1960s, West Berlin wanted to become a car friendly city, like all western cities at that time. So they ceased operation on all tram lines and ripped out 99% of the tracks. Instead, dozens of kilometers of inner city highways were built. They even had express bus routes along those highways. Rail public transport was not dead though. This era also saw a great expansion of the subway network. Subways are not in the way of cars and cars are not in the way of subways, so it was considered a win-win situation.
Meanwhile in East Berlin, trams maintained their role as a vital part of the city's public transport. For some larger new developments in the city outskirts, they even built new tram lines BEFORE the houses were finished. So construction workers could already take the tram to work there.
Today - roughly 35 years after the fall of the Berlin wall - the reunified Berlin has slowly re-expanded the tram network back into the western districts. Being a car friendly city is now only a priority for a small minority of enthusiast petrolheads. Most serious planners prioritize the so called "Umweltverbund" (ecomobility), which comprises walking, cycling and public transport as the intended environmentally friendly modes of transport. The network has grown back to currently 200 km, but that does not even make up one third of what it used to be. It will probably take decades to come to rebuild the lines that have been removed for the car in the past.
SFMTA has entered the chat, I’m sure :3
Exciting to see these old PCCs getting new life, and hopefully a transit comeback in Philly!
Your videos are entertaining and informative. You have valid suggestions. However, the State Legislature of Pennsylvania controls the allocation of funding. Just a couple days ago, Septa's reqest for funding was $250 million short.
Although they are not up on its website, Alstom has updated its design for the new trolleys. The windows now have sharp corners, in line with most other modern LRVs/Trams worldwide. Also, they shortened the cabs, as they now have just two viewer windows instead of the three in the original design. They now also now have "modernized" LED arrows as turning lights. You can see the updated design on Philadelphia Magazine's website.
love the burn on the high speed outta nowhere
Great discussion. As with everyone else, I love seeing the PCC cars back. While I agree with preferring trolleys/streetcars generally, I am often surprised that trolleybuses don't get more support/airtime.
And fully agreed on Delaware Ave. Every time I'm over there I wonder why we're not taking advantage of the rails that are just sitting there. I didn't know they would need to be re-gauged, which seems like a fairly big hurdle.... But I dunno, even a bespoke vehicle for just that road might be worth it.
Great video! So happy to see the 15 return, though I haven't been able to catch one yet (lots of busses are still running on the route mixed in with the trolleys)
I live in NYC and I wish we had trolley service :(
Start a petition
Maybe just restore and run the 23 from Chestnut Hill to the Frankford Loop, resulting in some higher frequencies on a portion of Girard? I remember when the tracks were replaced in Mt Airy back when I was in college by PennDOT. What a waste not to use them. The infrastructure is probably mostly intact north of Girard. There has been a desire to restore the trolley in that part of the city for decades.
@@johnp1937 there's been a lot of paving over south of hunting park in recent years
@@yiannisd8286 That’s a shame, but apart from the 10-15 year old tracks on Germantown Ave, most other areas would likely have to be rebuilt. I can imagine a restored trolley line would spur redevelopment and economic investment. And the bus to center city can still run alongside the trolley.
@@johnp1937 I agree you could have the 23 come from chestnut hill to the Frankford loop and maybe put a trolley depot somewhere along Richmond Street area for the 23 & the 15
i went on one of the overhauled trolleys just a few weeks ago on the first day
36:41 - A hundred years ago, the Ben Franklin Bridge was built with 8 road lanes, 2 of those lanes intended for trolleys. Those trolley tracks were never built into the road though, as trollys had begun to 'go out of style'. In the 1970s, the road was converted to 7 lanes, with a center median lane vacant. In the 1990s a concrete zipper median wall was installed to use 7 lanes for traffic on the bridge road.
Seen stories about that myself. In fact, if you ride on PATCO, before the line goes up and over the bridge on the Philly side, there's an enormous empty space just before the bridge itself begins. That was supposed to be a trolley yard for that proposed line over the Ben Franklin Bridge, but it was obviously never used, and it's just been a big empty void for all of those years.
@@SteveGettingAroundPhilly it wasn't going to be a yard it was supposed to be a large terminal
@@yiannisd8286 Definitely was a preposed terminal. They talked about it briefly in architecture class I took.
czcams.com/video/eNkPmVIUVow/video.htmlsi=eWomGROD8EhoRmzq
Slight correction, there is one standard-gauged trolley line in Pennsylvania that operates between Orbisonia and Blacklog Narrows about 10 times a week. /s
I wish it would connect to 69th St. It's so close to it's terminal at 63rd
Awesome video
15 was my trolley to high school for two years, then it was temporarily replaced with a bus for two more years.
You forgot to mention the Route 6 trolley. I rode the last day of service in January 1986.
Can remember getting on the center door of trollies in the 1950's and they had a motorman collecting fares. Years latet you could see the round plate that covered the toll box that were removed and driver collected fates.
Its generally understood if the 23 were to return, it would only be between chestnut hill and erie
That would maybe a good compromise. The tracks in that area have less chance for cars blocking the lines tracks and would be a good feeder line to the Broad Street Subway.
Wake up and smell the pretzels 🥨. Haha!! Good one.
The fact that a loading platform or section of track has been removed means nothing, as reopening a line would have entailed rebuilding them from scratch anyway.
Just upgrade some of the former trolleys to trolleybuses
Appreciate the thought, but wouldn’t a line used for freight be standard gauge, making incompatible with the Pennsylvania trolley gauge used by the trolleys?
They should reactivate all of their former trolley lines, including the ones in Chestnut Hill and in North Philly.
Probably not.
Or at least use trolley buses. I love both. I ride the 101 in the suburbs all the time.
Quick note on teh LA mention at 44:20, while National City Lines did have a tenure in LA transit, they bought the old LARy streetcar system, while the PE sold theirs to a property called Metropolitan Coach Lines. During this period it was MCL (which was following a lead already set in motion by the PE in the 1930's and '40's when the PE abandoned whole lines and divisions over the course of a weekend) abandoned and substituted buses most of the PE network (due to a variety of reasons from cost of upkeep to the cost to upgrade the lines to modern standards) to where it was only 4 lines by the time MCL was taken over by LA's first MTA in 1958. The LARy system would be rebranded as the LATL system in 1944 and pretty much chug along unimpeded to its takeover in 1958 with a few exceptions. In 1947, the LATL would do its only unjustified route elimination (with 2 routes converted to Trolleybus operations); in 1955, the LATL would do this again but this time because of the Harbor Freeway bisecting the intersection of Grand Ave and Santa Barbara Ave (today MLK Blvd) with the company viewing the cost of relocating the tracks to be completely unjustified and instead opted for buses for the 4 lines still utilizing the corridor. In 1958 the last 4 PE Lines and the last 5 LATL streetcar lines would be combined with the bus network into the first LAMTA. Even under semi-public ownership rail was not safe and the last PE lines were gone by 1961 (partly due to cost to upkeep/upgrade the roues, partly because PE/SP wanted passenger trains off of a very lucrative freight feeder network), with the last 5 streetcar lines being eliminated in 1963 (to reasons I have yet to grasp fully, I've heard everything from the cost of operating the lines which had high frequencies, to the maintenance yard being taken by the city for the Convention Center, to the cost of upgrading the 60+ year old electrical infrastructure). While there is a court case with NCL and their involvement with the auto companies, it is far to say that the "great streetcar conspiracy" is a cut and dry historical fact.
I rode the Yellow Cars as an infant in the early 60's. The 5 remaining routes were all heavily used. But the tracks and overhead weren't well maintained,and accidents and derailments happened. Plus they got stuck in traffic downtown. That's why the original MTA decided to kill them in 1963 for buses. Oh,and the 5 remaining lines and the 2 trolley bus routes went through areas that were transit dependent (code word: poor and minority residents),aka another excuse to kill service. The uprisings happened 2 years later.
@@janettemcclelland2959 I had heard from folks that a reason for the Watts riots was the loss of transit service! I can believe the ridership too, I heard from some that the ridership of the replacement bus service never matched the rail ridership because of how much worse the service was in comparison.
I never knew the last 5 lines were in that much disrepair tho it does make sense with some pics of Div 4 in those final years.
@@btomimatsucunard The replacement service was awful. Citywide. The Pico Blvd/1st St bus that replaced the P car had high frequency,but it was always a sardine can the entire route from Rimpau all the way to the end of the line at Rowan Ave. The two bus routes that replaced the F,U and V along Vermont Ave had the same issues. And they didn't even replace the F along Hoover St or the 9 on 48th St. We moved from 1st & Boyle to Slauson & Hoover around the end of 1963/early 1964. We had to walk to either Vermont or Figueroa to get buses. It's still that way today,and we moved out of that area in 1974. They cut the Pico bus to Alameda (Regional Connector) last year,and you now have to transfer to the E Line train or another bus to go along 1st St to Boyle Heights and East LA College. That sucks.
@@janettemcclelland2959 It really does as the corridor on E 1st St could benefit from a hyper local service to the E Line's limited service.
That pretty much lines up with what I heard from the guys in PE groups sadly enough. If you don't mind my asking, what was it like to ride the P Line or any of the other streetcars when they were still around? I really only have railfan videos and photographs to go off of.
@@btomimatsucunard I lived with my grandma on 1st & Boyle,and we went to Grand Central Market on Broadway & 3rd every day. Or we went to Woolworths on 7th & Broadway or the May Co on 8th. That's the earliest thing I can remember: us walking to the corner to wait for the P to go downtown to shop,then walk across the street to go back home. If my mom was staying with us,she would ride all the way to the end at Rimpau next to Sears and the lumber yard, then take the #7 Blue Bus to her job as a domestic on the west side. The P was PACKED. They replaced the #30 bus on 1st St east of Little Tokyo with the 106,which only runs every 20 minutes on weekdays and every 40 on weekends. And it stops running at midnight,the 30 and its predecessors ran 24/7 on 1st St. Metro cares more about rail than buses aka suburban folks with cars. Even though buses are the heaviest used service,and always have been.
Awesome video, man!
-Kevin
i love that "K cars suck" applies to basically anything with wheels
Imagine seeing a Dodge Aries on the road today
@@DiamondKingStudios no joke I saw a reliant and few weeks ago and it was more attention grabbing than any exotic would be
@@evan12697 At this point, Chrysler’s been foreign-owned and passed around by so many merging companies that I doubt another Lee Iacocca figure can save them this time. Chrysler as a brand only sells the minivan now. Jeep and Ram are basically the lifelines of Stellantis North America. I don’t know how they’re going to get out of the state they are in.
uh mopars only
Imagine a future where a trolley could take you from Overbrook, down 63rd to Baltimore/Angora, down 58th and across a new bridge to a South Philly avenue like Snyder or Oregon...
Wow, they had trolleys in Montana.
"Wake Up and smell the pretzels 🥨 " 😂 Most Philly joke ever!! 🥩🧀🏆
Very informative video. Loving to see SEPTA investing in more trolley connectivity while simultaneously updating its subway-surface rolling stock and resurrecting classic PCC's (15 line). How about restore the 23 trolley along 11th and 12th street down town and germantown ave in North Philly!
37:04 Regauged? The trolleys at the Electric City Traction Museum, including those that formerly operated in Philadelphia, all share space on freight lines currently operated by the Delaware Lackawanna railroad. The original tracks were built by the Erie RR, in Moosic PA, the Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley RR (Laurel Line), which was a high speed, third rail interurban line from the Erie interchange near Moosic, through the Crown Ave tunnel to the former location of the L&WV terminal/interchange on Cedar Ave in Scranton. Finally, by the DL&W from the interchange into the nearby rail yard where Steamtown NHS and the Electric City Traction Museum reside. All three railroads were common carriers and interchanged regularly meaning all were built to the standard gauge of 4’8-1/2”. I am guessing that, at least, some lines used the old Pennsylvania RR broad gauge that even the PRR fully phased out in the mid-late 1800’s when the country went all in on standard gauge.
I thought there was once an idea of Penn’s Landing-City Hall trolley line as one of the Obama Streetcars or something. It would not be worth it to tunnel from there back to 13th since it would mess with the L (although I personally would make 11th trolley only if that happened since 8th/Market still has a connection to Jefferson). Should still do something there, even if just tourist/Heritage thing from Penn’s Landing to Frankford/Delaware that’s only around in the summers and maybe select Winterfest days. You still have to cross 95 to get to Penn’s Landing from 2nd St unfortunately
Rode the route 56 trolley to high school. Almost evety time it rained it was late. Great in smow storms. Worst thing when nogoodnics double park to go into a store or house for 5 or 10 minutes trolley was stuck snd never once saw them get a ticket.
The Delaware Avenue stretch could simply just be made dual gauge to retain capability of freight services if need be. And I think in a more general sense the reason why it’s so frustrating to deal with an entity like SEPTA is that this region has massive potential and outside of a few efforts here & there (Wawa etc) they’re just not tapping into it the way it really needs to be. Funding is one issue, but the mentality of contraction & reduction has left the region feeling like they can’t count on any route being there at all let alone on time. The other issue, which I think still needs to be addressed is to have a more cohesive connection between the more urban core of the region and the surrounding counties. You talk about a streetcar Renaissance … we could totally put so many different streetcar routes into service across Eastern Pennsylvania. Like I said before - so much potential and so little done about it.
Glad Philadelphia got the #15 trolley line back. I had my doubts it would return to trolley service when temporarily suspended the last time. I grew up in Baltimore in the '50s and '60s, and still miss our old PCC streetcars. National City Lines did its damage there as well after WWII, but it was the city gov't. and Transit & Traffic Director that wanted the last two lines gone in 1963! The city was modernizing downtown and didn't want relics of the past (streetcars) marring their vision of the future by running through the middle of the new downtown. The T&T Director wanted to change traffic routing and didn't want streetcar tracks and wires in his way, so Baltimore's rich streetcar history became just that - history, until Light Rail came along. The Director was probably rolling over in his grave when tracks were being re-laid on Baltimore's downtown streets.
Philly got a very complex transportation system. A mixture of NYC, Boston and San Francisco.
The Subway four track section reminds me of the IND. But the trains they use is more like Chicago. NYC don't have lights in front of their subway cars. The car seating arrangement on their older cars are very interesting.
Boston. Light rail runs in the tunnel with their subway. Philly just does that much better and it is much more complex. They call their trolleys light rail.
SF light rail looks a lot like Philly.
How about letting the PHL transportation system be it's own thing without comparison to other cities?
I believe back in the day when Philly started shutting down a bunch of the trolley lines, they sold the trolleys to SF.
Time to time you do see this happening whenever you watch channel 3 CBS channel 6 ABC channel 10 NBC cars parked alongside the tram line getting into an accident with them. I wonder if you can grade separate and put transit priority signals along the entire tram line. That way there is no accidents on this route. For the SEPTA Alstom Citadis Trams they should order them for the suspended 23 and 56 tram routes. For the 15 Tram Line to 69th st perhaps they should order the ones used in Ottawa modify to Philadelphia designs. The solution for Erie Avenue why not buy electric buses that can run on overhead wires and charge both at the overhead wires and Depot. The same ones can be used to replace the old E40lfrs on 59 66 & 75.
It's really interesting to me that the dual-cab k-cars have a different power delivery system and pantograph. I always thought that they were rebuilt at one point or something
Not hard to see why people might think that. From what I understand, the main reason why their the only ones with pantos is because the wires on that part of the route were modified to be able to work with them, whereas the rest of the routes weren't for the longest time. That's going to change with the new trolleys, since from what I understand, they'll all be running pantographs, so they'll be making that update as part of the Trolley Modernization.
@@SteveGettingAroundPhilly Ah that's pretty cool, glad to see that bringing the older wires up to date is also part of the plan. I'm so excited for the new trolleys, it's going to be a huge step forward.
The suburban K cars were duel cabs from the beginning because the two suburban trolley lines do not have a loop to turn the cars on the outer end of their routes. As for the paragraphs they were used when the line was upgraded to more of an LRV standard on the private right of way portion of the lines. The track and overhead wires were upgraded at that time. I don’t know if there motors are more powerful than the city cars but the old Red Arrow St. Louis cars had higher horsepower motors since they ran faster on the West Chester line as more of an interurban type of operation. They do accelerate well to get up to speed.
i’ve been thinking about the delaware ave trolley for a while
Very nice job, thank you. Regarding the Columbus Ave / Delaware Ave tracks, did you know there used to be a subway station in the Philly side of the Ben Franklin Bridge? Could make a nice connection to PATCO. I'm not talking about Franklin Square.
Shame that they needed major overhaul after the refit done in early 2000s. Was second overhaul warranted? Also what’s the new heavy duty trolley poles going up on Gerard?
There is still a trolley that runs from Media into the city (I think 69th Street Station). I see it numerous times a day.
I think their trolley system is the reason why they didn't build their subway out. It kind of makes you think that Philly is a make do city.
Subways (Heavy Rail) are still more superior! You can clearly see that in their video showing when a trolley is using the Subway section.
HR and Trolley enter the station at the same time. The HR leaves first. It has more entry points for loading. There's no payment system onboard.
But even when the trolley leaves the same time as the HR, the HR are faster. Than the trolley has more stops within the Subway, making the HR somewhat of an express.
Agreed they should have went full Japan lol
@qolspony yes and no. The trolleys were all ran by one large company that operated as a monopoly which lobbied against metro lines cuz they saw it as competing with the trolleys. This is why philly got a late start to subways. The city also compromised by allowing them to run the MFL originally
@@yiannisd8286 Interesting.
The trolleys are operated as the local version of the heavy rail Market- Frankford line. They serve the intermediate stations between 30th street and 15th street. This allows the el to operate as an express between those two stations. Not a bad operation especially since SEPTA allows a free transfer between the services at both 30th street and 13th street.
Perhaps. However the " trolley king" George Widener died on the Titanic. Hard to know what would have happened if he had lived.
They should make a line from the Philadelphia sports complex all the way to rivers casino and on both sides it would meet with route 15 and the broad street line
Man they really should just bite the bullet and bring back lines 23 and 56 as trams. Thats my main point Im gonna say.
(Also excessively long comment below. Like a wall of text about my own experiences where I'm from with all of this stuff. Read at your own risk)
I'm just glad Philly even has trams. I'm not from there, I'm not even from North America, I live just outside of Copenhagen, Denmark. And Copenhagen used to have an excellent tram system! 107km or 67 miles long with 20 different lines at its peak! A massively comprehensive network. But bustitution too came for us, in part by regulators giving buses an unfair advantage, so while trams allowed little to no standees and had 2 man operation with a driver at the front and a conductor at the rear (multiple conductors even if it had multiple carriages), the buses from the early 60's onwards had just the driver, and could permit many MANY more standing passengers, unreasonable amounts even on paper.
The initial plan was to shut down many of the lesser tram routes, but keep the 6 busiest ones. The city had long had ambitions of an underground rail system, likely underground expansions of its existing electric S-train system which was launched in the 1930's. So the plan was to keep the 6 busiest lines until they were all replaced with subways. But a highway loving mayor in the 60's named Urban Hansen, who nearly brought America level highway mania to the city, rushed the closing of all the lines. The initial plans were for the last line to shut down in 1975, but that was rushed forward yet again to 1972! Just one year before the oil crisis!
Heck the city had even just received 100 brand new articulated Düwag GT6 trams between 1960 and 1968 (The PCC was also trialed but was deemed worse than Düwags offering), but all of these new trams were then sold at scrap value to Alexandria in Egypt as "Third world aid" where they still run to this day.
Copenhagen or at least its suburbs are thankfully reviving the trams, as a brand new 28km or 17 mile long orbital light rail line along Ringway 3 is under construction, opening in 2025. This is far beyond where the legacy trams wouldve run but it is the only tram project in the city so far to have gotten of the ground, and the line is probably most comparable to the Maryland Purple line in the outskirts of Washington DC.
Other tram revival projects have surfaced, and the city tried to make a comprehensive regional rapid transit plan with both Light rail and BRT corridors extensively mapped out in the mid 2010's under a national left wing government that was happy to invest in Railways and transit. It was under this government that the Ringway 3 line, as well as 2 other light rail schemes in 2 other Danish cities, Aarhus and Odense, were given the green light. However in 2015 a new right wing government was elected and they immediately withdrew funding.
Still a few projects continued piecemeal with studies. Namely a new tramline in the northwest which for a large part would directly follow the old Line 5 tram (the last line to shut down in 1972) and the current 5C bus, which is one of the worst cases of BRT creep and actually lost about 3 million annual passenger trips from its conversion to a heavily creeped BRT (A loss from around 20 million annual passengers to 17 million. Simon Andersen has a great video on it). The government even provided co-funding in 2021 as part of a national infrastructure deal, but politicians in the city, namely from the centre left and right wing, immediately declined.
Multiple politicians infamously even compared tram tracks to the Berlin Wall, I wish I was making this insanity up.
The project after a while continued studies but without national funding and with BRT also thrown into the mix as the preferred option. Though since then, a municipal election has happened and the parties that are pro-tram have gotten more votes. Plus ever since then and the introduction of a new centrist national government in late 2022, support for the centrist parties that were opposed to the tram dropped even further, so the tides may be shifting in the city for more trams, though the risk of BRT still loom for a corridor that BRT will be illsuited to handle the demand on.
It doesnt help that the 2 other Light rail projects in the country that opened in 2017 and 2022 have had a very rocky history with low ridership, severe technical issues like being incapable of operating in frost weather in some places, excessive vibrations through the ground and into nearby buildings, shoddy construction work with supports for overhead wires falling apart, and the huge price tags for these projects (relatively, still dirt cheap compared to tram projects in the US), have all caused a lot of public backlash towards trams and made them somewhat taboo, and given rise to massive idolization of BRT instead, as if BRT is everything trams could be but better and cheaper, even if thats not true. Lots of misinformation is around that tries to paint Light rail in a bad light here and BRT as like a mesiah for transit.
2 other BRT projects in the suburbs along other orbital corridors have also gotten government co-funding and broad political support. But they also suffer from other issues now. For tram projects, municipalities were granted excemptions to their imposed investment ceilings to be able to fund the projects, but the national government has declined to do that for BRT, making it practically impossible for them to fund their share of the BRT projects, even though they have the money, without having to resort to BRT creep or cutting important welfare and social services, which are always strained due to national level austerity measures regarding public spending for over 2 decades.
Besides all of this, the country's first proper BRT system opened in 2023, and though it also underperforms, the media doesnt cover it as much. Still the light rail systems around the country have also finally started finding their footing and fix some issues, and generally win the public, at least in the respective city they run in over. And people are seeing the realities of BRT, since many of those I mentioned who try to praise BRT as a mesiah dont even want BRT, cause they hate the dedicated lanes and signal priority. They only gawk at the idea of a fancy looking bus with fancy looking stops. And maybe some techbro thing attached to it.
I just hope we get tram investments around here on the table and more importantly shovels into the ground. The bus system here is easily the worst part of the city's transit and we have a huge need for something in between our suburban S-train and the buses that isn't gonna be a ponzi growth scheme and take decades at a time like the Metro, and which won't be underbuilt, too low capacity, and at risk of being slow and expensive to operate like BRT.
Sorry for rambling so much on this. Just wanted to share my perspective and the struggles happening in my own city.
Gauge is 5' 2.5"
Only the wheel profiles are different
i just hope the trolleymod dosen't slow down how fast the trolley driver go i have a feeling it will tho
X for doubt on the worlds longest trolley. The kusttram in belgium is 67km long and is running for well over a hundred years now. And while it is hard to find reliable information today there were most certainly longer lines in the former oberschlesien tramcar network of what is today western poland.
can you do a video about the recent massive redraw of the philly busmap please.
It's definitely something I want to talk about for sure. Doing some digging about the effects that the Bus Revolution redraw would have, and hoping to put it together in a way that doesn't get people lost because there is a lot to discuss lol
Based on my experience with modern streetcars in other parts of the country, I'm concerned that the new Alstom units will be significantly slower than the current stock - thoughts?
@forestfeller that can very much depend on the context from what I've seen. Which streetcars have you ridden if I may ask?
@@SteveGettingAroundPhilly I've personally ridden modern streetcars in Atlanta, DC, and Charlotte, but I'm also basing this concern on watching videos of other systems. The first thing I noticed about the trolleys when I first visited Philly was how quicky they zipped down the street like a bus.
@@forestfeller Definitely true, they've got strong acceleration here. Even the old PCCs can get off the line as well as a bus can.
I will admit that I need to try out a lot more light rail systems, though I did try Baltimore's out a while ago (the suburban bit, not the insanely slow downtown bit). From what I remember, acceleration seemed to be decent, but I will agree, it's not to the same extent as what you see in Philly.
Atlanta and DC's lines in general I know are hampered by how slow they are in general because they have mixed traffic lanes (which happens in Philly too, but there are some dedicated lanes and especially dedicated rights of way on the suburban routes, which also greatly improves overall trip time). Charlotte has the same issue, but to a lesser extent from what I've been able to gather, because at least it has dedicated lanes and lines for portions of its route.
It could be that SEPTA's order could have more powerful motors to help acceleration over the Citadis Spirits that they'll be based on (which are like the LRVs in Ottawa and the Fitch line in Toronto), which considering that visually they look very different than a lot of other Citadis models, I wouldn't put it past, but that's definitely going to be something to keep an eye on since we don't know too much about the specifics. If more of an emphasis is placed on dedicated lanes and signal priority, slightly slower acceleration can be mitigated somewhat, but it's going to have to be something to take into account, especially for Route 15 and the Subway-Surface routes.
The 1940s USA PCC streetcars were available in zippy good riding configurations with the major weakness being no A/C. The PCC Presidents Conference Committee streetcars starting in the late 1920s was series of highly developed patents for streetcars with strong interurban influence to compete with traveling by automobile. 2024 European trams are slow and ponderous in comparison even though they purchased many of the USA PCC patents.
People reviewing typical European trams have found they are actually slower than the Diesel buses covering the same route That is also the discovery for a reintroduced "streetcar" that is a street running European tram in Washington DC by a rail fan. It is not the zippy PCC Washington DC street car.
Washington DC's streetcar system had on its Georgetown Glen Echo streetcar line Route 20 a dual track independent right-of-way where I've talked to an old man by this time in 2014 "George" who live on it remembering how he'd as a youth he would ride it with the Glen Echo PCC streetcar floating at high speed along the right-of-way that they thought was fun. Those DC PCC streetcars could get up to 60 mph. An actual Glen Echo streetcar exited down the the Virginia Transportation museum in Roanoke VA where I saw in the early 1990s. It was under roof and looked like it was ready to take passengers. I sat in it.
It can be seen in this video the classic restored Philadelphia PCC steetcars accelerating from a stand still as fast or faster than the cars and gets up to speed quickly. Overwhelmingly a slightly increased performing PCC streetcar with A/C is a superior riding experience and faster than the typical street running European tram. I think it would be a turn off to put those slower European trams on Philadelphia streetcar lines where people are expecting a zippy USA PCC streetcar.
Great video - really long however - not sure if you’re able to edit your script down and tell the story in 15 mins? Or break it up into 2 or 3 episodes just with slightly different takes on the issue?
You may find you’d get better replies.
Good luck! I’ll subscribe and see where you take this!
But the question is can SEPTA actually pull it off? I actually like SEPTA and tend to be more accepting of them compared to other transit enthusiast/activist. However, there's a reason SEPTA has a lot of backlash too - they have the opportunity to do a lot of improvement and make transit SIGNIFICANTLY better, but then SEPTA does a SEPTA and either executes it horribly or doesn't take the opportunity - which just makes more people in the city mad at them and not trust/like the service. I actually know people who have been in Philadelphia their entire life (people around my age and older) and they haven't even been on a SEPTA bus and some aren't even entirely sure what exactly SEPTA is - they might say bus company, which in hindsight, is kinda true, but they wouldn't make the connection that SEPTA is a full-fledged Transit Authority with multiple modes.
I'm not saying SEPTA shouldn't make improvements, they should and we should give them the chance, but let's be honest, how much trust do we have in SEPTA to not fuck up?
these are trams... maybe you can call 2324 a trolley since it's that old, uses a pole for electricity, etc...., but "streetcar" is outrageous.
Street car just sound like car parked at street and trolley Is basicly how we call owerhead wired that charge them.
Anyone notice that suburban car 115 has Lexus badges on it? 😂
Theyve done the same here in nyc
My cuz saw someone go under the Rt23 outside my house on 11th and Bainbridge
Is there a way to petition for the Trolly on the 56 to re restored in the new construction?
You can try to write a petition but it probably won't work only because the tracks and wires have been removed.
These were running in 2002.
When we get a new trolly?
Is that the same Brookville that makes the locomotives?
Indeed it is! They've mostly focused on building streetcars recently, but they did build locomotives too. I know they built some for Metro-North a while back.
sounds dangerous
First of all, the horse cars of the 1800s were not trolleys, since they were powered by horses and not by trolley poles and electric wires. They could however, be called streetcars since they did run on rails in the streets. Second, I have NO idea what you mean by one of the most confusing junction stations (at 13th & Market Sts.). It always seemed very easy to board the correct trolley for where you want to go. All five routes end there and start from there.
I will say that I am thrilled to see the PCCs back in service on route 15, while it is depressing to think about what happened to other routes that should have remained trolleys (23, 47, 50, 53, 56, and 60). I like the idea of new streetcars to replace our K cars, I hate the way those new "light rail" trains look.
With the price of cars and the lack of interest in Electric cars, an electric public transportation might be a backup plan for the poor people in the city who won't be able to fulfill the "dream" of all electric by 2030 (or whatever goal year Biden called for).
Not just poor people ride public transportation.
Somebody mentioned LA. That shows you how effed up the Automobile Empire really is. Second largest city and nothing but BUSES? Gimmie a break. Thank God that's starting to get better, but for decades everyone thought that was OK.
18:20 Oh, God, NO, NOT THAT ONE!!!
So sad. Dedicated transit funding from gas taxes!!
that so racist .... 10:15
That is certainly was. It's pretty much unthinkable now, but the white operators didn't want to work with black employees for anything outside of menial tasks. Not all history is good history, that much is for certain.
THE STREET IS G
IRARD,NOT GERARD C'MON GET YOUR PROOF READER ACT TOGETHER!!
I assume the caps lock, random line break, no space between words, and misspelling of proofreader as two words are all part of an elaborate joke, right?
dude is just passionate about girard i guess