Hi TG Gainey Productions, Thanks for watching and for sharing your memories and colorful accurate descriptions. I remember the former end of the line in Norristown as a bustling spot in the good old days. Don't know about now as I haven't been there in years. Cheers, tassiebaz.

Hi hobieone60, Thanks for watching and for the kind words in your comment. The P&W was really great in Red Arrow days (the good old days). Speaking of which, American Bandstand when it was still in Philly, WOW. We must have the same taste in music. Stay well. Regards, tassiebaz.

Hi Blue9 MultiMedia Group, Thanks for watching and for your comment. Stay well and all the best for 2021. Cheers, tassiebaz.

Yeah, but the CTA-6000s were so old there was no practical way to keep them running long-term, and they were disasters if you were a commuter. The cars were already scrap when SEPTA bought them from the CTA. They paid something like $500 each plus haulage, then had to spend a bundle to get them back into operating condition and adapt them to the P&W's unique operating characteristics. The CTAs were noisy, could only make ~50 mph on a line designed for 75-80, didn't have A/C, leaked cold air in winter, were poorly lit, and took three people to operate. On top of that the motors had a tendency to flash over when they sucked in leaves on the more-wooded parts of the line. In any case MTBF wasn't anything to write home about. Still and all, I have to give the CTAs and the Victory Avenue people a lot of props. Without them, the line quite possibly could have ended up as BRT.

Poisson Volant yeah i liked them when they were on CTA as series 6000. There were more than 700 of them built between 1950-1959 but they were probably close to the end when they came to PA, even thiugh they were well designed and built. Many of them had motors and other components from PCC streetcars that had been built right after WW2

@@Poisson4147 ... thanks for that info - I have a set built by MTH in the original paint scheme - they certainly are a museum piece!

@@lcar4000 ... I don't think they got all of them - maybe a couple dozen or so? What say you?

@@lcar4000 I rode one set the first day they were put into service. At the beginning they were in really sad shape, with just enough patching to let them operate. Eventually SEPTA was able to repaint them and address some of the more egregious issues of heating and lighting. And yes, even when new they had much in common with PCC streetcars. Even the shells were essentially compatible. I’ve read that the designs and parts were so much alike some people refer to the 6000s as "PCC elevated cars".

Hi larry, Thanks for watching and for your kind words. I'm glad you lined the video and appreciate you taking the time to let me know. Yes, the P&W is alive and well, but the level of service has been reduced from what it once was. On a positive note, they are seriously talking about an extension of the line to King of Prussia. Although this was first proposed over 50 years ago, it may actually go ahead which would be great. Stay well. Cheers, tassiebaz.

Hi Lisa, Thanks for watching and for your comment. I hope this brought back some good memories for you. Stay well. Cheers, tassiebaz.

@@tassiebaz It did bring back memories. Thanks.

Hi George, Thanks for watching and welcome back. I am glad you enjoyed the presentation and appreciate you taking the time to let me know. Stay well and keep watching and enjoying. Cheers, tassiebaz.

That was one of the legendary Brill "Bullets". They served from 1931 to 1990 (!) Sadly SEPTA ran them into the ground and several were scrapped. About half of the fleet was saved. Three are at the Seashore Trolley Museum, one is at the Electric City Trolley museum in Scranton, but it's not currently operable. Another is at the PA Trolley Museum and the shell of a sixth car is preserved in St. Louis.

Hi Taurus- Astrobike, Thanks for watching and for your kind words. I am glad you liked the presentation and appreciate you taking the time to let me know.

Hi Libertu Bey, Thanks for watching and for taking the time to comment. You are correct, time does fly, and you wonder where it has gone. Cheers, tassiebaz.

Hi John, Thanks for watching and for sharing your memories. Although all that classic equipment is gone, at least the line is still running. Stay well. Cheers, tassiebaz.

@@tassiebaz Thanks for your reply. The newest version look a little boxy but they have very good and stable ride ; plus excellent acceleration and I think they are air conditioned ! I rode onetime and could not "feel the speed". You know what they say; "form follows function ".

@@rutheliz75 The new cars arrived in the early 1990s to replace the worn-out Brill cars. Yes, they’re air conditioned. It’s welcome on typical Philly "90/60” summer days (90F and 60% humidity) but I do miss being able to feel the air on a mild Spring trip.

@@rutheliz75 If only they weren't so heavy. They're literally killing the line they run on. They have to replace track almost annually because of the pounding.

Hi Francis, Thanks for watching and for your kind words. Regards, tassiebaz.

There were several proposals to extend service. IIRC the Electroliners were acquired for a line to Exton in Chester County (rather than Reading), but in the car-crazy 1960s there was no money for rail expansion. Plenty of bucks were poured into widening Route 202 to the same destination, though.

Hi Scott, Yes, almost everything had better service in the 60s and 70s. Besides every 15 minutes to Norristown, there were additional short trips to Wynnewood Road, Bryn Mawr, and maybe another place or two where there were crossovers. There were local trains, express trains, limited trains, and trips with two coupled cars. The Market-Frankford El ran a six-car train every 90 seconds in the rush hour, with A and B trains, and some surface routes ran almost as frequently, with some even better. It was real fun going out and riding and photographing back then. Regards, tassiebaz.

the P&W was an underused resource as far as I am concerned. To get to the city or 69th St. Terminal and the major shopping area (not shopping center) in Upper Darby that was there in the area in the '50's and early '60's I and others in the Wynnewood area would take the infrequent Y or I bus. Actually, Penfield station was only a 10 min walk and only a few times do I remember actually riding the P&W to get somewhere (as opposed to just riding it for the fun of it)

Hi B Bo, Thanks for watching and for your comment. Also think how much things have changed since the 60s and 70s with all the new light rail systems, many in places that had previously abandoned really nice operations. I think the Reading Terminal is still there, just not as a train station, so at least they didn't demolish it. Regards, tassiebaz.

It was a stub station in a city with 2 networks just as Broad Street and Suburban Stations were on the city's opposite side. In order to connect the two separate systems, a new tunnel was built to a new Market East (now Jefferson) Station underground and then further to Suburban Station. Without it, the city transit would be a mess.

Hi David, Thanks for watching and for taking the time to comment. Your memory is good and you were there just in time to still see some interesting equipment. Stay well. Cheers. tassiebaz.

The N5s have a touch strip next to each seat, for the same purpose.

Hi Michael, Thanks for watching and for your comment. From what I read, the new cars (N5s) were made by ABB in the United States in the early 1990s. There is nothing that can replace the old cars that used to run on the line. Regards, tassiebaz.

You are welcome, TB. I am surprised that the drivers of these cars still sit on the left like trolley drivers (as opposed to subway/el drivers) and that they are not isolated from the passengers, especially in this day and age. The driver was very cooperative in explaining what he was doing (but to be honest, I didn't really like seeing him bend over while moving and picking up his water bottle). When I was a little kid (between 8 and 10 years old, in the late '50's) and riding the PTC "E" bus for 40 minutes to school every day, I became friendly with the drivers and would sit up front and talk to them all the time.

Hi Michael, In a prior life, I needed to occasionally ride the whole of Route E, and always found it tortuous, especially in the rush hour on City Ave. Regards, tassiebaz.

IIRC the shells were built overseas but assembly was done in the US. Also, nearly all stops on the line are flag stops. That unusual practice is a major reason the line runs so efficiently - drivers only have to stop when needed. Of course it can be a real surprise to newbies who don't see the signs indicating they have to press the signal button, and the driver blows past at speed.

Hi Sky Diamond, Thanks for watching and for your informative comment. stay well. Cheers, tassiebaz.

Hi Joseph, Thanks for watching and for your comment, which makes perfect sense. Stay well. Regards, tassiebaz.

Liberty Liners weren't ordered originally for the line and neither were the Budds and CTAs. The N designations date back to earlier cars as well and only account for cars ordered from the manufacturer to run on the line. Second hand cars don't count.

@@blue9multimediagroup Then why were the 23 out of the 26 Bridge cars (pre-PATCO) were designated B-III when they went to the Broad Street Subway?

@@josephheston9238 Because the Bridge Line was owned by PRT and considered as part of the Broad Street Subway. That's why the cars were compatible. Port Authority didn't take over until years later.

Hi Dave, Thanks for watching and for your comment. With such an interesting line and all the unusual equipment that ran on it, it's hard to pick a favorite. The Bullet cars would certainly be right up there. Regards, tassiebaz.

Hi francie18, Glad you had a chance to watch this. West Overbrook is now called Township Line Road. Rosemont is now Roberts Road and Conshohocken Road is now Matsonford. King Manor is DeKalb Street. Regards, tassiebaz.

@@tassiebaz Thank you! Matsonford isn't too far from me. That 's interesting about the station name changes. I am surprised how many stations on this do not have parking, but maybe when they built it they were not concerned with that issue. I am enjoying your historic videos!!

Hi , I'm glad you are enjoying the videos. The Norristown High Speed Line (aka Philadelphia & Western) has an interesting history. Here are some very brief highlights. The line was incorporated in 1902 (not too many cars back then) and was originally planned as the eastern link of a transcontinental railroad connecting to the Western Maryland Railroad at York, PA. The first train ran in 1907 between 69th St and Strafford, with the line to Strafford branching off the now Norristown Line (opened in 1912) near Villanova. The last train ran on the Strafford Branch in 1956 For a number of years, until 1951, interurban equipment of the Lehigh Valley Transit operated on the P&W from Norristown to the 69th Street Terminal. The LVT ran north from Norristown through Lansdale, Souderton, Perkasie, and Quakertown to Allentown. The P&W once operated local freight trains to various industries along its line until 1970. Regards, tassiebaz.

@@tassiebaz Thank you for that history.

@@tassiebaz IMHO there doesn’t seem to be any rationale for the name changes. SEPTA frequently claims it’s an effort to associate stations with intersecting roads, but at the same time they seem to be creating more confusion by undoing names that have been in use for decades if not a century.

Hi Cats01, Thanks for watching and for your comment. You are seeing correctly. After the North Shore ceased operations in 1963, their Electroliner train sets were sold to the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company, known as the Red Arrow Lines, the units were renamed Liberty Liners and ran a few trips a day in regular service between 69th Street and Norristown. They were retired in 1978. Regards, tassiebaz

@@tassiebaz One of them is now at the Illinois Railway Museum and back in Electroliner configuration and North Shore Line colors. It's being restored for operations; I can't wait to ride it!

Hi @@Northsider21, They are magnificent vehicles. Enjoy the ride when they get going. Regards, tassiebaz.

@@Northsider21 the other is in Liberty Liner colors at Rockhill Trolley Museum in Orbisonia, PA. It is the only operating Liner.

@@Northsider21 Hope they would keep the diner on the car.

Hi George, Agreed!! Cheers, tassiebaz.😀

Agreed!!!

@@tassiebaz In the SEPTA REGIONAL RAIL LINES you'll always hear a voice that says: WATCH THE GAP WHEN EXITING or WATCH YOUR STEP WHEN EXITING just before each announced stop. Also helpful an announcement will say which stations are wheel chair accessible very useful.

@@albertcarello619 Hi, Glad to hear that SEPTA is helpful. Cheers, tassiebaz.

Hi Albert, Thanks for your comment. Agreed, but when these were bought, they were considering an extension of the line to at least Downingtown which never happened. They only ran them on limited stop services with, I believe maximum of 4 round trips (2 in the morning and 2 in the evening). One trip I was on reached almost 80mph according to the speedometer. In any case, I was grateful for the approximately 15 years they did run. Cheers, tassiebaz.

@@tassiebaz I also thought the line was goin to be extended to Valley Forge or King Of Prussia at one time. If the Lehigh Valley interurban didn't abandon and was still in operation to Allentown these Liberty Liners could have been even more utilized to full potential.

@@albertcarello619 Hi, Yes, and they are still talking about the King of Prussia extension. There were lots of possibilities, but thing happen very slowly in Philadelphia or not at all. tassiebaz.

@@tassiebaz Do you remember if these liners had 2 sets of horns. One set is the low note foghorn type and the higher note dual blast horns. Also the gongs are retained but we're very rarely used on this line since there's no street level running.

@@albertcarello619 Hi, Sorry, that's beyond the extent of my technical knowledge and I couldn't find anything on the Internet about it. Cheers, tassiebaz.

AFAIK SEPTA scrapped all of the rehabbed 6000s. 😢

@@Poisson4147 Great while we had 'em!

@@georgemurphy2579 Agree 100% - they kept the line running for about 4 years & kept it from being converted to BRT. SEPTA doesn't freakin' care about its heritage though. When 69th St. Terminal was being rehabbed they discovered signage dating back to the Lehigh Valley days ... and trashed it all. Another time they had a couple of early cars (Hog Island? Can't remember ...) that were scheduled to go to a heritage line. Pickup was contingent on a particular schedule. The flatbed truck got delayed, the driver called ahead & told SEPTA they'd miss by maybe an hour at most. By the time the truck got to the yards SEPTA people were already using oxy torches to cut up the cars. Total vandalism.

@@Poisson4147 these are no longer railroad companies; rather, they are now state employment agencies...sad but true.

@@georgemurphy2579 Yeah, SEPTA is a good example of what the Brits call a "quango", which stands for "quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation" ... famously skewered in the satires "Yes Minister" and "Yes Prime Minister". Heck, the day job of SEPTA's chairman is running a beer distributorship!

Hi kingsmoove112, Good question. Knowing SEPTA's desire for economy, they probably figured a way to have a farebox near the driver, but I don't remember exactly how they did it. I do remember when the Budd cars ran on the Market-Frankford on the all-night service, they used the single Budd cars (not a married pair set) in 2 or three car trains, each with a conductor and a farebox. They did this because those single cars had door controls in the middle of the car, so the conductors could control their own doors. Fares were collected onboard because stations were closed on the owl runs. I don't know how they do it now when trains run on weekends on all-night services on both Market-Frankford and Broad Street. Sorry I don't have a better answer, especially since I rode both the CTA cars and the Budds. Regards, tassiebaz.

@@tassiebaz Well that's interesting, thank you! I mean because i know that the ABB N-5's had the fairbox placed to the right of the operator, just as similar to surface transportation (buses, trolleys)..Never rode on the CTa, MFL when they were assigned to the NHSL. So i always wondered where it would be placed since the operator on those particular train cars had operator booths, whereas the N5 didnt have much of one.

@@kingsmoove112 I'm sure that SEPTA would have found a way to do it if it meant less personnel on the train. Regards, tassiebaz.

@@tassiebaz Thanks again..

There was a farebox right by one of the doors (I think the doors closest to the "blind side" of the car), and the conductor would collect the fare (and issue transfers I think) right by the farebox. You can see everyone moving to the door with the conductor at 13:55. The M3s that ran on the line had a similar set-up, though I believed they just used the middle door of the car.

Hi George, My impression is that SEPTA was famous for getting rid of everything they didn't need as soon as they could. However, I found an interesting site on the Internet that has some great information about those and other retired equipment: www.bera.org/cgi-bin/pnaerc-query.pl?sel_allown=Southeastern+Pennsylvania+Transportation+Authority&match_target=&Tech=Yes&pagelen=200. Cheers, tassiebaz.

@@tassiebaz ... The old green and yellow Chicago El cars are a favorite of mine. I never knew they came (or some did) to Philly! MTH (going out of business next year) made a set of them in the original CTA paint scheme. Steve McQueen in "The Hunter" is the one who inspired me to obsess after this equipment. The CTA cars all seemed to have four doors - two on each side of the coach. Some even had trolly poles in addition to the third rail shoes. I really appreciate your knowledge and hard work here!

Hi George, Have you seen my Chicago KZfaq presentation at kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oryfgJCbvpO5Zas.html ? If you like the CTA, you'll enjoy it. Cheers, tassiebaz.

@@tassiebaz ... Thrilling! I didn't recognize some of the equipment. There was more variety out there than I thought. Thanks again!

Hi George, Great, glad you liked it. It's such a pleasure to be able to share these memories with people who have similar interests. Cheers, tassiebaz.

Why did they have these cars on the Route 100? Trying to repurpose them until the newer cars at the time were ready?

@@cobaltwill215 That's correct. There were multiple reasons for the line's problems in the 1980s. SEPTA knew the Bullets and Strafford cars were beyond their service lives. However the agency was in bad shape financially and couldn't afford to replace the P&W cars at the same time they had other lines already on the verge of being shut down. They tried to keep patching the Bullets and Straffords but their condition was so bad that they too had to be taken out of service. To make things worse the manufacturer fell way behind in delivering the N-5s. SEPTA tried stopgap service running buses on parallel roads but they took 2-3 times as long to make the same trip. That forced them to look for alternate equipment. Given how badly SEPTA was run at the time it's surprising they were successful at repurposing the CTAs and ex-Market/Frankford cars, but they were and it saved the line.

Trucked them over by flatbed and then used trucks from retired PATH K cars as the MFL trucks were Broad Gauge and NHSL is Standard Gauge. 6 cars were done (all double-ended, single-unit cars) and all were named after Space Shuttles.

@@Poisson4147 The CTAs and the ex- Market- Frankfort cars should be kept for emergency backup service.

@@albertcarello619 The current fleet is actually larger than necessary. They bought 26 cars in the expectation that the K of P spur would be finished before '05. That didn't happen of course so they have 10 extra cars. In any case the CTAs and M-3s would have been almost impossible to preserve. They were castoffs at the time. The CTAs were already ~40 years old when SEPTA acquired them - bought as scrap and fixed up just enough to get them running again. They were effectively held together by baling wire and duct tape. (OK, not quite, but close.) They had a habit of breaking down without warning or suffered flashovers that sent showers of sparks from the undercarriage. From what I've read all but one set were scrapped. P.S. The subway-elevated is called the Market-Frankford line rather than Frankfort. Named for the part of the city served by the eastern end of the line.

Hi Mattilyn, I know they've had some accidents, but I've never filmed any of them. Regards, tassiebaz.

I’ve been riding the line for ~50 years and have studied its history fairly extensively. AFAIK no car has even fallen off the Norristown trestle. There HAVE been a couple of gawdawful crashes elsewhere, though. One was deliberate when vandals blocked the tracks. The worst occurred when the old Strafford cars were at (actually beyond) their reasonable service lives. SEPTA as always was in bad shape financially and was trying to squeeze a few more years out of them. On one inbound trip a car (167, IIRC) lost its brakes on the downgrade to 69th Street. On top of that the communications mike to the terminal had been inadvertently shut off which prevented the driver from sending an alarm. The car plowed through the stub-track buffers and into the waiting area à la DC in 1951. One passenger died and numerous others were injured.

Hi drippinglass, Thanks for watching and for your comment. Maybe ugly, but unique. Stay well. Cheers, tassiebaz.

tassiebaz The other trains were great! 😀 Guess I just like the older stuff.

@@drippinglass Agreed!!! I too like the older stuff and on the P&W, they were all classic. Unfortunately, there aren't too many places left to enjoy the older stuff. Cheers, tassiebaz

The N-5s are from ABB. The K-cars run in the city and on the 101 & 102 suburban lines. I agree that the Kawaskis aren't exactly great looking. Let's hope the new ones look less like refugees from a 1970s line in eastern Europe.