Can't wait to learn about the long lost Norristown Mid Speed Line

This is genuinely the best way to get into the city from King of Prussia / Norristown / Bridgeport I only wish septa regional rail ran all night.

On my way to comment that the government should give SEPTA more money so they can fix all of the things

Norristown has a “Shinkansen” and an Alaskan Hertiage railway.

At around the 2:50 mark you can see the caternary poles for the former parallel PRR Norristown line, service ended 1960.

Happy Tuesday from South Florida awesome guy

Great video. You have all the correct history. Septa claimed low ridership to Reading. In reality Septa doesn't have a diesel shop facility and what was left of the Reading was about over.
The cars that catch fire are almost 54 years old and some if not all purchased by the Reading. They are still better riding than the newer silver liners.

So it turns out that the diesel maintenance yard was in Redding. On top of that all the diesel routes they ran had termini outside the funding district (with the exception of Newtown). Rather than build a yard to maintain a few trains that ran what amounted to shuttle routes to places that didn't even want to fund SEPTA, they cut their losses and dropped all diesel routes. Even with the tunnel, its still possible to move diesel locos to the needed lines without ever going into the city center tunnel.

I hope they do restore train ridership to Reading. Good friends with a girl in college from Minersville that would take this to Pottsville from UPenn to get home.
Referring to CityNerd video from several months ago, that stated by doing a distance-destiny calculation the top two, by a considerable amount, needed train lines would be 1) Allentown to New York and 2) Allentown to Philly. I grew up in Allentown.
Finally, in the 1990s, I created the map (though heavily revised by now) of CC Philly that both the Philadelphia Visitor’s Bureau and Septa give out for free. I imbedded my initials barely visibly (a cartographic tradition) in the Moshulu. Septa decided to use my map, without my knowledge, and paint it on the wall of Suburban Station, using a four color separation rather than the millions possible from the CMYK standard. This resulted in having my initials prominently displayed on the central ticket wall. They were very upset and fired me on spot. By then I had graduated and moved on

Thanks for finally making these old Reading lines make sense to me! Thom the awesome train explainer.

SEPTA should run regional Dual-Mode express trains to Reading. It feels logical as it has 420,000 people. I have a vision

I was a rider on the Norristown line every day from 2014-the pandemic
Miss it

Philadelphia does a amazing job with it's transportation system and kept many street car lines still in operation

Even though actual service to Pottstown and Reading remains an elusive pipe dream, the potential to extend the line is a reason it’s usually spared whenever SEPTA has to post a doomsday budget that requires the elimination of some regional rail routes.

I used to live in Manayunk and take that line into work every day, I miss it

That penalty box seating in the SL IV (6:10) makes me appreciate the center doors on the Arrow IIIs I ride regularly. 😂

Hopefully, service can be restored to Reading and West Chester one day, lots of track repair will probably have to be done though.

Hooray - you stopped at my station. I live right next to the rails too.

Also could be nicknamed the Schuylkill. So if it was to end in Pottsville, then Its not only ending in Schuylkill County but also pretty much parallel to the Schuylkill River the entire way. From Philadelphia to Conshohocken, Norristown, Phoenixville, Royersford, Pottstown, Reading and up to Pottsville.

I can remember riding that line to Reading in the '70s as a kid. They used to run the diesel Budd cars or the F7 diesels. Much of the Pennsy line to Reading has been turned into a rail-trail, and the old right-of-way still exists. I hope they'll restore service to Reading, but it's a long shot. They've been talking about it for decades.