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| Re: MANY SEPTA PHOTOS from last Tuesday (316884) | |||
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Re: MANY SEPTA PHOTOS from last Tuesday |
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Posted by WillD on Fri Sep 29 00:07:14 2006, in response to Re: MANY SEPTA PHOTOS from last Tuesday, posted by J trainloco on Thu Sep 28 23:30:41 2006. The MFL was designed for use with the PTC trolley lines. I believe for a short time before the 69th-30th St elevated along Market St was finished the PTC's trolleys did run down the center two tracks of the Market St Subway as well as the outer two tracks. These days the 4 track subway has the two outer tracks used by the Subway Surface trolleys while the two center tracks are used by the MFL. All tracks are built to Philadelphia Trolley gauge, but obviously the outer tracks have trolley wire while the inner tracks have underrunning third rail. The Rt101 and 102 Media/Sharon Hill lines (the pantograph equipped trolleys in ChuChuBob's photos) were also built to the same gauge, and through running is technically feasible, but those lines were owned by the Red Arrow, not the PTC, and SEPTA has maintained the division between the MFL, Subway Surface, and Media Sharon Hill lines.The BSS was built quite a bit later than the MFL and when it was designed they did so to BMT standards, down to the standard gauge and third rail type. I think intially there were thoughts of somehow either joining a branch of the Philadelphia and Western, today the Rt100, a standard gauge, third rail using LRT, with a BSS branch somehow. The BSS clearly was intended to be a higher capacity, higher speed service, while the MFL was simply a multicar trolley line either in the sky or underground. As designed the BSS was to incorporate branches bringing service to the far northwest, northeast, and southwest corners of the city, but budget shortfalls and the Great Depression brought those plans to an end. Today about the only chance we have to extend the subway somewhere useful is the planned Roosvelt Blvd Subway to Southampton Road. |
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