This is a proposal for a full intercity surface transit network for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, implementable within 5 years of commencement. The primary component is a core network of bus services, provided on a fully accessible intercity motorcoach fleet, but the plan also encompasses PennDOT-funded rail service. The core network bus routes are distinguished from their counterparts today by being far more frequent
Category Archives: Amtrak
Should SEPTA add free Wi-Fi to the Regional Rail fleet?
With schedules back to normal after the summer’s Silverliner V debacle, thoughts are turning to how SEPTA can regain the ridership it’s hemorrhaged over the last three months of misery (which isn’t quite over yet; trains are still shorter than quota). Jason Laughlin, writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer, collected a few suggestions on the Inky’s …
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This, too, is America: Burlington Route edition
I’m on the California Zephyr, on my way home from Denver, and the big stories back home are about the continuing lack of Silverliner Vs, and the announcement by Vice President Joe Biden that the Federal Government will be providing $2.45 billion in loans to Amtrak for the next generation of high speed trains on …
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Advanced tips for how to get in and out of Center City during the SEPTApocalypse: Paoli-Thorndale Line
After two days of travel woes due to the Silverliner V crisis, some patterns have been established in terms of where the worst delays are, and how best to avoid them. This series will be a listing of the best strategies to avoid the worst. These will all assume an origin or destination in or …
The Silverliner V fleet is grounded. How you can avoid the mess.
A defect in the trucks of the SEPTA Silverliner V has rendered 120 cars of the Regional Rail fleet inoperable until replacement parts can be fabricated and repairs can be made, a process which is expected to take the rest of the summer. With approximately 1/3 of the fleet illegal to run, SEPTA Regional Rail will …
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Still more questions than answers in the wreck of Amtrak 188
The NTSB released its preliminary findings into the Amtrak 188 derailment on February 1st, and to be perfectly blunt, we still know about as much as we did the day after the crash. We know the “how” of the derailment — that the train went into the curve at Frankford Junction at 106 mph instead …
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A brief summary of my remarks to the NEC FUTURE hearing
I wasn’t expecting to speak at Monday night’s hearing on the NEC FUTURE Draft EIS, mostly because I failed to do my homework and realize that they would be accepting spoken testimony. So I winged it, with some hastily jotted notes. Here are the highlights of that extemporaneous speech, heavily revised and extended, as best as …
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Dear New Yorkers
If Governor Andrew Cuomo’s continued blithering idiocy manages to stall Amtrak’s Gateway tunnels until after one or both of the Hudson River Tunnels fails, and if Mayor Bill De Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton succeed in wiping out the Times Square pedestrian plazas, one of America’s most successful urban street interventions, over a handful …
About the engineer lawyering up
I’ve seen quite a lot of nonsense being written about the engineer of Amtrak 188 lawyering up and not giving a statement to the Philadelphia Police, and I can’t let it all slide. So here’s a few words on the subject. In the Navy (American or anybody else’s), if a ship away from the pier …
SEPTA surging extra service to to West Trenton Line and other routes to accommodate displaced NEC riders
SEPTA announced Wednesday evening that it would be moving trains and buses to Northeast Philadelphia and Bucks County to meet increased demand on parallel routes, in the wake of service suspensions after the derailment of Amtrak Northeast Regional 188. The centerpiece of the new plan is a near-doubling of service on the West Trenton Line. …
Sic Transit Philadelphia 