The purpose of this quick day trip to Philly is to both see a friend who lives in South Jersey and also get a quafecta of 400 AGR S+ qualifying points by riding the Keystone Service for just $16 total (would have been $13 off-peak: Saturday or Monday through Thursday) on the last day of double points month, although because this promotion is limited to two trips per calendar day I’ll only earn 200 instead of 400 bonus points plus another 100 for having Select Status.
The 9am Keystone is the train I need to make the day work and the 6:30am Megabus seems like the only only to get down to Philly quickly. I wake up before 5am and quickly book my Megabus for $13.50 (It was $12.50 last night). I walk over to 181 Street and get there at 5:20am. The station is in cleanup mode, the floor is being mopped at the elevator landing and there isn’t someone in the token booth but a man not in uniform cleaning the MetroCard swipes.
At 5:28 a train comes and we stop at 155th and 163rd (as all trains have been doing, or bypassing the stations since Superstorm Sandy) but run express from 145th Street down to Penn Station. I get to Penn Station before 6:00 and decide to take a little walk though the deserted station. I notice the NJ Transit Waiting room is closed off and see hand-made signs at the timetable racks telling people to pick up crude looking simple prints of the simple timetables on line. There out of the one I need, for the NEC Line (I’m taking NJ Transit back from this trip) but I grab a couple others for my collection.
I then walk back to 34th Street and check BusTime finding out that it isn’t worth waiting for the M34 SBS. The MegaBus stop has been moved since my last trip a year ago, first to outside the Port Authority until there was uproar from paying tenants, and now to 34th Street all the way at the Hudson River between 11th and 12th Avenues. I have to say that Greyhound wins thins one for convenience. The walk over to their sidewalk stop feels far too long and I find the chained off line for Philadelphia and have maybe 20 people ahead of me, no chance of the font window. At
6:15 a bus pulls up signed for DC, at 6:18 another one comes around for me to Philly, but no boarding, apperetly MegaBus can only board one bus at once. The staff keep boarding the DC bus. At 6:29 we board. She looks at my iPhone email (not bothering to write the numbers down) and board.
I am far too late for a front seat and decide to sit in the very back of the upper level with a wide seat of 5 across and a back window. Unfortunately it is a partially obstructed view (better than a few of the seats around me) because MegaBus wraps some of the windows on its buses.
We leave at 6:35 just a little late. I watch the sun rise behind the NYC skyline as we go through the Meadowlands, passing the bus lane for the Lincoln Tunnel. I doze off a bit but can’t stretch out across five seats because someone has sat down across from me and is laying across 3 seats snoring enough that I can hear him. It’s smooth sailing down the NJ Turnpike until we get off to head for the Ben Franklin Bridge where there is a brief traffic jam. We stop at a yard full of buses to pick someone up just before the bridge. I think I’m going to make the 9:00am train and buy my multi-city ticket going over the bridge, at least 15 minutes before departure, the cut off to buy an Amtrak eTicket I’ve figured out. At 8:40 we get to the first stop at 5th and Market. I debate getting on the Market-Frankford El for $1.30. I do head downstairs to be the first one off the bus and we leave at 8:43.
I regret a bit not hopping on the MFL. At 8:52 I see 30th Street Station as we go around it. The bus finally arrives at the bus stop on the opposite the historic station at 8:56.
I jog across the street into 30th Street Station to a line of people going down the staircase, getting their tickets checked. I fumble with my phone as the gate usher says “I believe you.” Getting to the platform at 8:58. Luckily Philly isn’t a boarding gates close 5 minutes or 2 minutes before departure station. Keystone Train #641 leaves on time at 9:00am. The conductor scanned my ticket, getting a little confused saying just one of you to Paoli. We pass the yard and see the exhibit train. Then some old graffiti covered SEPTA cars that look like their getting scrapped.
9:13 Ardmore, a stop on some Keystone trains but not mine. Then Haverford quickly.
We pass a septa local and one going the otherway. I like the unique whistle of the cab car. We also pass a Keystone train the other way.
The train arrives into Paoli at 9:25. I get off for my hour and start on my photo essay of the station inside a suburban town. The stop is only one I’m visited that’s staffed and I sit down in the nondescript station house and notice separate ticket windows for both Amtrak and SEPTA, as I’m sitting there the agent comes out to yell at me. He asks “If I have permission from Washington?” I try and explain Amtrak’s rules that photography is permitted for ticketed passengers but doesn’t budge claiming I look suspicious. I go back outside and get on the phone to call and find out about the photo policy. I call the Select priority line and am transferred by an agent to Customer Relations. I am on hold for about five minutes and give up. I then hear the same complaining agent yell at a lady with too many bags. I continue
Keystone Train #609 comes in on time for a 7 minute ride to Exton. The conductor is friendly and asks me what I’m taking pictures of. I say railroad stations and explain that I’m also on a points run for Select+ which she understands. She is nice and friendly, the opposite on the Paoli ticket agent.
We slow down because tree workers are out along the railway line and also pass an old NJT comet car before SEPTA’s big train yard. I hear someone ask about wifi and were told this car doesn’t have it since there are no decals outside of it. We arrive at Exton at 10:35, 4 minutes late due to the treework.
Exton is a boring unstaffed station with nothing around it, surrounded by parking lots and a walkway that I take to a private road (but not gated) suburban community. It’s an uneventful hour that includes just two SEPTA trains and a Keystone Express Train bypassing the station heading towards Philly.
At 11:35 my next Keystone Train #663 comes in 5 minutes late, in pull-mode instead of push-mode. The conductor tries to scan my ticket on the platform and has trouble so he asks for my last name and collects my electronic ticket that way. My reservation is listed but I wonder what would have happened if I had taken a random train and not one I had reserved through the reservation system although these trains are unreserved. It’s a quick 5 minute ride to Downington which is in a real town.
I have a good 20 minutes getting my photo essay of the simple but with a neat pedestrian underpass Downington Station until my train back to Philly.
The train I take back to Philly is train #648 and it comes in at 12:02pm led by a locomotive with each car except for the cab car open. There are a few empty sets of forward facing seats but I decide to sit backward for peace and quiet. I do get a seat check for this 40 minute ride. Someone behind me asks about a food car and the conductor says “Sorry no food car on this train”. At 12:17 we stop on time at Paoli. We then switch onto an express track south of the station. I go and sit on the right to see the depots on the Philly-bound platforms of other Regional Rail Stations. We get to Philly 6 minutes early at 12:38am on track 12 and are across from the Amfleet-IIs Pennsylvanian that is having its engine changed (this is done in Philly, not Harrisburg). I get some photos of the platform before I head upstairs against the rush of people heading downstairs to board. The track for my Keystone train that will continue to New York at 1pm hasn’t even been posted yet.
I am meeting a friend who is arriving by car and isn’t at the station yet. I wander into customer service to ask about SEPTA’s photography policy and am told “You can take pictures of stations but not on the platforms or tunnels” and doesn’t listen to my complaint about the Paoli ticket agent. I then meet my friend.
My friend lives in the South Jersey-Philly suburbs and when were done having lunch and hanging out I have him drop me off at the Rt. 73/Pennsauken Station, the nearest RiverLINE stop to where we are. There I’m not paying attention to the schedule and just miss the northbound train at 3:19. I’m stuck with half an hour to get a photo essay of the parking lot only light rail station. I decide to take the next train south at 3:45 to 36th Street, the southernmost RiverLine station I haven’t visited. I have a good 25 minutes there since the RiverLine yard is just south of the station platform. At that point on the 4:11 train I have northbound service every 15 minutes to work with. My next stop is Riverside as I get great evening light. Next stop is Delanco where the sun nearly, fully sets. I decide to try for one more station I need, Beverly/Edgewater Park and realize that although a sliver of the sun is left I’m shooting in the dark. I take the next northbound train to Trenton, getting there at 5:50 and my single DMU train pulls up just behind another DMU.
This is at just the right time for the 5:59 Local to New York (the post-Sandy effects mean there very few express trains operating). I buy a ticket for Newark and the train is pulled up only at the northeastern end of the platform with a SEPTA train in front of it. I first have to walk by the last 4 cars that closed of what must be a 12 car train of Arrow-IIIs. I walk then up to the front through the train to a the first car, a nice empty comet car with the usual dirty, reflective windows. One conductor comes up and collects my ticket. We get to the first stop of Hamilton and my car is crowded.
A different conductor comes through tries to grab my seat check thinking its a leftover not realizing that the other conductor had gotten my ticket already. I say I boarded in Trenton and wanted peace and quiet for a moment. This gets a laugh.
With nothing to see out the terrible reflective windows I read. I do look up and notice a few cars in the Jersey Avenue yard, although that station is still closed with no short-turns pulling into its unique New York-bound siding track. I get off at Newark at 7:10 which is on time.
At Newark I just miss a PATH train and decide to walk into the station to if there is anything interesting. There isn’t so I walk back to the PATH platforms and immediately notice the destination signs are off along with automated announcements except for Sand Clear of the Doors. The conductor makes manual announcements saying “This is the only train running, no World Trade Center trains, no Hoboken Trains.” The train is quite empty until we get to Newport (the Pavonia part of the name was dropped) and it becomes standing room only. Its stop and go under the Hudson River. I stay on until 33rd Street and get off on the exit platform (something I don’t have any photos of yet, the last time I took a train into 33rd we arrived on the middle of the three tracks).
I then walk over to the A train via Penn Station getting this photo of the brochure rack:
I walk over to the A train and as we go through 175th Street, this, R142s! pass going through the station. I hop off for some rare IRT trains passing an IND station photos:
I then walk home via the passageway to the GWB Bus Terminal. Another great day on the rails and seeing a friend!