Today marks the 140th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. In celebration, Amtrak hosted National Train Day at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. I talked with some members of the National Association of Rail Passengers, picked up some new information on the Silverliner V, saw some great paintings of trains, heard a former Pullman Porter talk about his experiences, and saw Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. Probably the most exciting part was the rolling stock tour. I got to walk through an Acela trainset as well as an old Santa Fe dining car.
I departed for Paris twenty days ago. I stayed in the 5th and spent plenty of time walking, riding the Paris Metro, taking pictures of trains, and eating at restaurants. I made it to all of the obligatory tourist sites, including the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysee, and Notre Dame. My trip seems far away now, but I had a great time and took some fun pictures (click here for a slideshow). I also documented my trip in a Google Earth file.
In contrast to the last two years, where most of my regional rail rides were to/from Market East and Suburban Station, this year I’ve been spending a lot of time at 30th Street Station. With my Intro to Education placement trips and my Megabus journeys, I’ve gotten plenty of chances to investigate different parts of the station, including the cool sculpture in the North Waiting Room. The Spirit of Transportation, sculpted by Karl Bitter in 1895, was originally installed in Philadelphia’s Broad Street station. A baby carrying an airship leads this procession of transportation innovations, “a prophetic vision of a mode of transportation to come.”
Futuristic transportation: paddleboats, dirigibles, and locomotives
SEPTA has a mockup of the new Silverliner V cars available for the public to walk through at Suburban Station. Unfortunately, my last couple of trips into Center City have been either too rushed or too late to go through the car. I plan to finally make it in next week during fall break. Having three level platform doors will really help reduce dwelltimes in Center City. I’m most excited about the digital LED destination signs. The plastic placards they use now are frequently wrong, though they are quite the ticket for dorm decorations around campus.
One of the many Silverliner V advertisments posted around Suburban Station
Some time has passed in which I’ve been able to reflect a bit on the collision between a Metrolink train and a freight train in Chatsworth on September 12th. It was a pretty horrific incident. I was especially shaken up that a Latin teacher Quinn and I know was in the train. The video of his story is intense:
There has been some valuable discussion about transportation investment priorities in the Los Angeles area in the wake of the disaster. CityWatch discusses the relatively unsafe record of public transportation in Southern California and the systemic reasons for this. In the LA Times, Steve Hymon writes about the management and budget of Metrolink. He raises some salient points, including Metrolink’s unusually high farebox recovery rate, and how concerns about “homeland security” have harmed rail safety.
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