NE Corridor... "Progress"????

[ngauger]

About 20 yeras ago Conrail wanted to re-name all the local raillines. They were named after the main towns they served, for instance - I would always take the Marcus Hook/Wilmington lines when i worked in Pahila in the early 80's....

The bean counters were determined to "update the lines" even though everyone knew where they were going and when they had to be at the station to "catch the train"...

They named them "R" for regional Railline and a number - totally different from the town names....

Now - this weekend - - they are
taking away the "R" Designations (R1, R2, R3...etc) and guess what they are doing??
In a Frenzy of a major grand Decision - they are re"Naming" the rail lines.... Back to the original names..

Oh How i LOVE Progress on the Rails!!!

Link to "Local" story
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[e-paw]

Too funny Ngauger.I know what you mean about "rail progress". In my old home town of Bayonne NJ, Millions of dollars were spent to remove all the rail and stations for passenger service in the early 80's. than in the late 90's they spent even more $$$ to put it all back in the same place.

[ngauger]

Too funny Ngauger.I know what you mean about "rail progress". In my old home town of Bayonne NJ, Millions of dollars were spent to remove all the rail and stations for passenger service in the early 80's. than in the late 90's they spent even more $$$ to put it all back in the same place.

Ouch -------------- OuuuuuuuuuCH -- OuuuuuuuuuCH -- OuuuuuuuuuCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UN-real!!!!!!!

[P5se Camelback]

Kool!

Except ... Conrail is freight, right? So Unless I'm really losing it, wasn't it SEPTA (SouthEastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority) that did all the route renaming? Gotta change things so everyone knows that the new management is in charge. Then, when everyone is thoroughly confused, announce a new program to take stress out of commuting ... at the end of the day, just look for the name of your town ... brilliant!

So instead of trying to remember the R5 is my train and looking at the board to to see which platform it would be leaving Suburban Station from, instead I would maybe once again just go all the way to the northern-most stairway down "To the Trains" (the one all the way to the right,) go down to the platform and board the "Paoli Local" ... just like before! ...
... brilliant!

Kool!

[ngauger]

Yes, thats one of the reasons they are changing it.. The R5 - when it comes South, changes into the R2 past my town toward Wilmington DE

On the way North - the R2 turns into the R5

there are a bunch of trains that do that - only because they serve different sections of tracks every run...

[P5se Camelback]

The problem is that they cut all the lines though under Center City so the PRR trains and the RDG trains all are inter-married and what was a Foxchase to Reading Terminal Local now goes right through the bowels of the city to PRR's Suburban Station ond comes out the other side as the Paoli Local!

But the renaming using numbers happened before the "Underground" with its station stops such as "The Galleria Shopping Center" were introduced, and so once the Thru-the-City routing was implemented, it got even more confusing as trains then had to change numbers somewhere under Center City and nobody knew which train to get on without asking a trainman or the conductor (or if you were like me ... the "motorman.")

I'm glad they are using the town names again!

[BR60103]

Toronto Transit did the same sort of thing with the Streetcar lines. Until about 30 years ago, all the lines had a name, usually the major street they ran on. But they bought new streetcars, custom designed at great expense, that didn't have enough room for a route name and a destination, so they changed the routes to numbers (500 series) and left the destination. Not a major problem as most of the time there's only one route along given tracks. But there are a couple of subway stations served by 2 lines and the same two lines, so you have to know the route number there.
I still don't know all the numbers. Transfers still have a route name on them (or did until recently).

[nachoman]

I lived in Utah for a few years. There, streets literally have no names (like the U2 song) . Anyway, despite the roads being a cartesian coordinate system, I was confused. I could know where I was, but at the same time not *know* where I was. Saying I am at 500N 300E feels like the answer to a math question, not the location of a restaurant. I could never remember whether it was on 300 north, 400 north, or 700 north where I saw that store I wanted to go back to. For some reason, a street name is easier to remember than a number. Plenty of people disagree, though. But I still say people know better the names of the people on their favorite team than their numbers .

[Sumpter250]

Then, there is the "Brown line", the "Red line", the "Purple line"....etc. on the CTA

If you want to get from point A. to point B., You have to be a fashion designer. The last time I used the train to go into Chicago, it was Metra, change at Evanston to the CTA Purple line, to Howard street, change to the red line, to Belmont, change to the Brown line...................and then try to remember what street I had to get off at !
The system was certainly not designed with "Senior Executive Vice Presidents of Biogas Technology" in mind.