Philadelphia Traction 50's and 60's

A look at electric traction in the Philadelphia Region from circa 1950 to 1965. Represented are the PRR and Reading heavy electrifications, the Market-Frankford Elevated, PSTC/Red Arrow broad gauge routes, the P&W to Norristown and extending northward, the LVT with Liberty Bell interurbans. Film sources are Dale Richards (courtesy of Railroad Video), Walter Schopp and John Hand. Audio sources are taken from video of like equipment wherever possible.

[@thedoeguy]

It's amazing how much of this still exists.

[@frederickwhite6416]

So wonderful and so sad. My grandmother didn't drive that was fine with me. She lived across the street from the 69th street terminal, I can still hear the El. We'd get on the P&W and ride it back and forth all day. We used to walk the tracks for miles. I can still remember the 1st time I saw a GG1 fly by. I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Thank for posting this

[@olivei2484]

My grandmother didnt drive either. Shes past on now, so. Im not sure which trolley lines they rode in the day. She was out in North Philly, off Bustleton Ave not far from Langhorn. Mom might know,will have to ask.

[@rdg2124]

Great stuff fmnut. Thanks for posting. Locations by scene: 1:05 Greenwich Yard, most likely an Army/Navy Game day. 1:15-3:14 Overbrook on the Main Line 3:15-4:00 probably Wynnewood on the Main Line 4:01-4:26 Woodbourne on the RDG New York Branch (Fairless Jct. to some) 4:27-4:39 Link Belt on the Doylestown Branch, Wood Siding is in view as is the road crossing at County Line Road 4:40-4:45 Crossing the Neshaminy Creek on the Doylestown Branch 4:46-4:52 Roslyn on the New Hope Branch, beginning of double track (spring switch visible) to Glenside 4:53-5:35 Mermaid Lane and Germantown Avenue on PTC Rt. 23. Note overhead bridge carrying PRR Fort Washington Branch 5:35-5:51 believed to be same location, shot from the PRR bridge 5:52-6:03 Germantown Avenue shot from RDG Wayne Jct. station platform 6:04-6:16 Climbing out of the subway at 46th & Market 6:17-6:34 Milbourne station and area leading to 69th Street Terminal on MFSE 6:35-6:43 69th Street Terminal Red Arrow/PSTC area 6:44-7:21 West Chester line of Red Arrow, various scenes along West Chester Pike 7:22-7:41 69th Street Terminal Red Arrow/PSTC area 7:42-8:19 probably along the Ardmore line (lighting and surroundings seem correct) 8:20-8:24 Drexel Hill Jct. 9:00-9:24 Ardmore 9:25-9:41 Paper Mill Road/Crum Creek bridge, Media line 9:42-10-08 Drexel Hill Jct, heading for Sharon Hill 10:09-10:21 original "temporary" P&W terminal at 69th Street 10:22-10:33 outbound on P&W with view of both MFSE and P&W yards and shops 10:34 possibly Penfield 10:46 possibly Beechwood-Brookline 10:47-10:50 Garrett Hill 10:51-10:56 Villanova Jct. with Strafford line still in place 10:57-11:33 crossing the Schuylkill River into Norristown 12:04-12:22 possibly Couter Siding near Belfry 12:23-12:27 Gehman Trestle near Hatfield 12:34-12:45 probably 8th & Hamilton in Allentown 12:54-13:23 Squirrel Siding in Lansdale. Substation at Main Street visible as well as the back side of Oak Park. Believed to be Charlie Houser standing by car. 13:24-13:33 rounding the curve at the Lansdale substation and entering Main Street heading towards Norristown 13:50-14:05 leaving Norristown, crossing the Schuylkill River, passing Bridgeport station and entering double track 14:06-14:08 King Manor area 14:09-14:12 crossing of P&W by PRR Trenton Cutoff with PRR wire train visible 14:14-14:20 Villanova Stadium area 14:21-14:30 Villanova Jct, different scenes 14:31-14:44 Wynnewood Road 14:44-14:48 Rosemont station 14:49-15:05 self explanatory 15:06 to end Gulph Mills with the Sure-Kill Crawlway in background.

[@fmnut]

Thanks for posting this. While I know many of the locations, I can't identify them all.

[@kirklindskog4507]

Based on your locations I got on google earth to see these locations present day. Pretty neat.

[@PhillyBagel]

Very good! The existing lines are easy to figure out but I needed help with the abandoned ones.

[@kae4466]

thank you to the folks who perserved these memories on film and digitezed them

[@peterhanahoe4913]

This is incredible stuff and you have done an astonishing job of the audio.

[@austinyingst5902]

Downtown Traffic + Roadside Speeders + Philadelphia = Great Traction Video. More. More. Thanks.

[@jacktaggart2489]

Great video. Never got to ride to Allentown on the LVT, but rode most everything else. Thanks for the look back in time.

[@billscott7050]

Great to watch videos like this with real audio not music.

[@fmnut]

That's what got me started on adding sounds to silent films. It's either 40s Swing music or hillbilly banjos. Like fingernails on a blackboard to my ears.....

[@jacktaggart2489]

Even on a hot humid day with the windows open there was always a good breeze through the cars, especially the P&W 'bullet' trains to Norristown. The then new MFSE cars (circa. 1960) had fans in the ceilings of the cars and were scornfully dubbed 'rolling ovens' by one local newspaper. The current iteration on the MF line is, thankfully, air conditioned. Pleasant memories, indeed.

[@Poisson4147]

Those MFSE cars were also known as "Almond Joys" due to the fan housings on their tops. During the summer we also called them "Ol' Shake 'n Bake"

[@mrjsanchez1]

I just drove down West Chester Pike during rush hour the other day (horrible), what a mistake it was to get rid of that line back in the 50's, at least The P & W Norristown, Media, and Sharon Hills lines survive, which is amazing in itself. Thanks for posting this, my first train ride was on the Brill Bullets around 1969 as a toddler, I still remember it!

[@Poisson4147]

A guy who lived along WC Pike told me there was an unofficial referendum on keeping the trolleys; it won something like 80% for to 20% against. But PennDOT's predecessor, the Highway Department, took its name very literally and charged ahead with destroying the line. This was the early 1950s when lots of people saw the future as cars, cars, and more cars. Now we're living with the results.

[@RedArrow73]

Fascinatin that PIONEER III's, not Silverliners, are shown. Full pans are pioneers, half pans are Silverliners.

[@OldsVistaCruiser]

Pioneer III cars are now considered Silverliner I cars.

[@allegheny48]

Thanks for the interesting video. The LIRR operated the MP54's but with 3rd rail pickup instead of pantographs. I often rode them in and out of Manhattan for school in the late 1960's and photographed them as well. Port Jefferson Station took one of the MP54 combines with the celestory roof and turned it into a tourist office and community center.

[@luislaplume8261]

Check out my comment above in the comments section. I grew up there in Queens, NYC during the Mad Men era and I remember both railroads had the same air whistle that hooted, and both also had some trains with the owl eyed windows on the doors and windshields for the motorman. When those trains had class unlike the dull bodies and colors of today.

[@albertcarello619]

allegheny48: I believe the LIRR operated diesel trains between Oyster Bay and Jamaica.

[@steamgent4592]

Wow this footage like all the other stuff you've posted is absolutely priceless! Thanks for sharing!

[@trainsupporter9088]

I second that! I enjoy the vintage videos...of a time I missed out.

[@michaelricks1618]

Wonderful. Thanks so much for sharing!

[@JessicaKasumi1990]

A good collection you have here. Tons of great vintage equipment, including the ex-Cincinnati and Lake Erie "Red Devil" trolleys engaged in service with LVT, once offering through service from Allentown to 69th Street via the Philadelphia and Western. Where did we as a society go wrong? Once plenty of transit, now most of it's gone, not likely to return due to a car obsessed culture.

[@rockguitarist931]

Watch "Taken For A Ride". It aired on PBS in the 90's and it's a story about how GM created our car obsessed culture for the express purpose of boosting their profits.

[@russellcandy9850]

What a wonderful job on the video!! Great content!!

[@gusfranceschi]

Wow! Very nice footage

[@usatran]

Fantastic video of lots classic Philadelphia traction. Amazing in its variety. Keep the sound up.

[@trainrover]

1 third way through, I am S O blown away....what a marvelous place 🍸

[@malachimuhammad-dy2ow]

It's really amazing that the Pennsylvania Railroad is still keeping their old MP54s.

[@fmnut]

This is historic film, not current events.

[@albertpatterson3675]

So this is how Frankie Avalon, Bobby Rydell, Fabian, and Chubby Checker got to American Bandstand.

[@RedArrow73]

The Dovells too!

[@virginiacook2724]

Love the No graffiti on the cars!

[@MalachiMuhammad-xg4xx]

I say, those must be the MP54s running local and express services on the Main Line. Trolley service on the 23, Budd M3s on the Market-Frankford Line, Red Arrows of the Suburban Trolley Lines, Lehigh Valley Red Devils of the Liberty Bell Limited Line, and J.G Brill Bullet and Strafford Cars of the Philadelphia and Western Railway.

[@AndreiTupolev]

I love the intro music 😊 My gosh, look at the length of that train at 1:10, a whole forest of pantographs as far as the eye can see

[@terrywitkowski6937]

This movie reminds me of the Cinncinatti intererbans I have on tape. well done fmnut.

[@franzliebkin]

Fantastic!

[@olivei2484]

Cool, didnt know about this one!

[@AndreiTupolev]

That electric train at 2:45 seems to be issuing smoke

[@fmnut]

Possibly brake shoe smoke.

[@josephnadler5521]

1:35 That's one fast MP54.

[@KevinCNYC1991]

It looks to be an E5 motor. MP54E5s and E6s were permitted to do higher speeds compared to the E1s or E2s.

[@chonga6442]

Fascinating and kind of sad. For railfans it was a better, vanished time.

[@jacquesblaque7728]

How's that? Look at SEPTA now.

[@chonga6442]

True that. I was thinking more generally about the light rail and interurban networks throughout the country. I was born near the the North Shore ROW in Wisconsin the year after it was closed. It always left me longing for what it had once been.

[@merccadoosis8847]

wonderful stuff

[@RedArrow73]

10:53 - 10:56 is the INTACT Villanova Junction.

[@danielkoch3231]

Awesome!

[@RailPreserver2K]

Whats the music

[@fmnut]

Generic royalty free came from downloaded video software.

[@ymer234]

60 feet rail pieces?

[@fmnut]

Don't know for sure.

[@dysontyronetd]

2:16 silverliner 2 and 3😭

[@kevinhoward9593]

10:55 villanova junction?

[@fmnut]

No idea. Not familiar with the area.

[@Poisson4147]

I slowed the playback speed a bit to get a better look. Pretty sure it's Villanova Junction. There was a tower there and a two-track interlocking that let cars cross over regardless of direction, both of which show in the video. The existence of the interlocking dates this clip to no later than 1956 when the Strafford branch was abandoned. There's another short view at 14:34 showing the Strafford ROW shortly after its rails were pulled up. 😢 During the winter when vegetation is sparse you can still see a bit of the Strafford ballast if you sit on the left side of a northbound car. The shame is that the Strafford branch might have picked up more riders if it had survived only a few more years. By about 1960 the area was starting to add houses and stores. Today there's a big shopping area adjacent to where the Sugartown Road station was located.

[@numbchomskull]

Before SEPTA ruined Philadelphia.

[@Poisson4147]

The devil's bargain was that without SEPTA there'd be even less transit. By the end of the '60s almost all of the private operations were epsilon away from going belly up. The PTC was deferring maintenance to keep shareholders paid. Red Arrow shut down the Ardmore line for want of maybe $500K to buy some secondhand cars, and had plans to rip up the Media and Sharon Hill lines. PRR and RDG were running cars that dated to the war period - the Great War that is, not WWII. But yeah - SEPTA is an acronym for Systematically Eliminating Public Transit Altogether :(

[@milou7300a]

Hi always nce trins électric GG1 good engine too, I like to watche thos who run in USA, friendly Jacques Canada

[@bas1010]

Thank you so much for this! I grew up on the Main Line in the 60s and recognize many of these scenes.

[@tombarnes7196]

Wow, that was a terrific ride in the Traction Time Machine! Thanks for sharing your high quality videos!

[@danielboone3770]

Oh now this is extreme! Electric traction in the Philadelphia Region. Thank you!

[@WAL_DC-6B]

Nice shots of Philly traction and how 'bout that White Tower restaurant in the background at 7:35. Thanks for sharing!

[@luislaplume8261]

This is post Korea War homefilms that were taken by train fans. The Long Island Railroad and the Pennsylvania R.R electric commuter trains have the same car bodies and windows. Some of them both railroads had the same air whistles and owl eyed windows on the doors and windshields on the motorman cab. I am a New Yorker who grew up there during the Mad Men era! Bot companies shared the same yards in Midtown Manhattan and Sunnyside Yard. The Pennsylvania R.R owned the Long Island Railroad from 1900 til 1966. In the final year, Governor Rockefeller of New York State signed the bill to make the Long Island Railroad independent and under the control of the New York State government thru the MTA.

[@rosemarywarfield3043]

Enjoyed this film very much, thanks so much for sharing this.

[@traindetective3071]

Philadelphia is a very fancy place,but I haven't went to Philadelphia before.

[@josephnadler5521]

@Reading T1 It was likely better when revenue MP54 service was a thing.

[@Poisson4147]

@@josephnadler5521 From a history standpoint, yeah, but I had to ride them to work. Slow, noisy, uncomfortable, and only a couple cars with air conditioning in the days when we all had to wear suits to the office. p.s. "haven't _gone_ "

[@luislaplume8261]

@@josephnadler5521 Bullseye! Check out my comment above in the comments section!

[@luislaplume8261]

@@Poisson4147 Wait a minute! Did you work for Don Draper of Cooper Sterling Advertising Agency? That we saw on Mad Men TV series? C'MON MAN!

[@Poisson4147]

@@luislaplume8261 You must be under 40. Wearing suits to work lasted into the mid-1980s in many places, esp. "old-line" firms in big, long-established cities like Philly and NYC. The first major co. I worked for only relaxed its rules after a big heat wave hit and people told mgmt. that they were sick of coming to work drenched. You may think Mad Men was satire, but it wasn't that far from reality.

[@tiduffield]

69th Street Terminal, West Chester Pike... fantastic stuff.

[@paulgreen6921]

Dis film is one of the best I’ve enjoyed of late, especially for it’s dynamic diversity. Those trolleys are impressive. PWG

[@RedArrow73]

10:10 - 10:20 is the Pre-1962 original P & W turnback track, no trace of which exists today.

[@austinyingst5902]

Traction!!! Great stuff. Loved those PCC cars. More? Thanks.

[@mtheaney]

The pre-herbicide era. Weeds around the tracks.

[@fmnut]

There were plenty of herbicides available and in use at the time of these films. More so than today, given how many were banned since that time. But weed spray costs money, something that was in short supply when these were private companies with little or no subsidy.

[@sideshowbob]

@@fmnut The electric railroads used PCB laden waste oil from electric traction transformers as herbicide. PCB's in the 10's of thousands of PPM. I am a civil engineer / project manager who worked on the New Haven Line for 3+ decades, recently retired. Every electric ROW is a linear superfund site. PCB's well over thresholds. Super expensive to do any work at all on the ROW, & especially, ESPECIALLY in the maintenance shops & yards (I did a lot of work on Stamford, E Bridgeport, & New Haven yards). Every spoonful of dirt gets shipped out to NV or UT as toxic waste. But that PCB laden oil sure was an Effective herbicide!!!!!

[@northpennvalleysteamrailroad]

Awesome

[@redbarnz]

Thanks for sharing! Lots of great traction moments captured from the past!

[@kevinmiller4486]

Beautiful color in these films. Must have been taken with a very good movie camera.

[@fmnut]

When it comes to color quality, it's much more about film choice, processing and storage conditions than about the camera. The color was also digitally enhanced in the scanning process.

[@Stussmeister]

Very interesting. From what my grandmother told me, there used to be a Red Arrow trolley line that went right down one of my hometown's main streets, and she would take it into the city. Sadly, those tracks are long gone, but one of the trolleys is on display at a local railroad museum.

[@Poisson4147]

There were originally four Red Arrow trolley lines. - The longest went down West Chester Pike all the way to that town, which may be what your grandmother is recalling. In the early 1950s the aptly-named Highway Department (PennDOT's predecessor) decided that WCP had to be widened because cars were the Wave of the Future. In spite of strong public opposition they condemned and paved over the trolley right of way. - The shortest line also started on West Chester Pike but cut off towards Ardmore. By the mid-1960s private mass transit was in such bad shape that even the once-mighty Red Arrow was nearly bankrupt; they didn't have enough $$$ to keep all three trolley lines operating so Ardmore was ripped up, IIRC on 12/30/1966. They did manage to preserve part of the ROW as a busway that's still used today by Route 103 - you can see it from the Ardmore Junction P&W station. It still even has a few of the original shelters from its trolley days. - There were also plans to pave the Media and Sharon Hill lines which would have ended all Red Arrow trolley service. However by that time the Urban Mass Transit Admin. had been created and was already helping to fund the two remaining trolley routes as well as the P&W. At least according to a couple of Red Arrow people I talked to at the time, the funding was specifically tied to rail operations; there were clawback provisions requiring *full repayment* if SEPTA tore up the tracks. So at least that time, federal' "interference" saved the trolleys!

[@Stussmeister]

@@Poisson4147 This sounds very interesting, and thank you for sharing :). My grandparents lived in Broomall (which is where I live now), and there are parts of the town that West Chester Pike runs right through, so I'm thinking my grandmother would have taken the trolley from there.

[@Poisson4147]

@@Stussmeister That's fascinating. My grandparents lived in Drexel Hill very near the junction where the Media and Sharon Hill lines branch. We'd sometimes ride into 69th Street and then take the El into the city for shopping, especially around Christmas time when we could attend the Wanamaker's holiday spectaculars. Wonderful memories ... IMHO it verges on criminal that so much has been lost.

[@Stussmeister]

@@Poisson4147 That sounds quite interesting as well. From what my mother told me, the trolley line was actually quite close (about one block) to her childhood home, so my grandmother would simply walk to the nearest stop. My mother also said that she would sometimes ride with her aunt (my grandmother's sister) to 69th Street and Wanamaker's during the holiday season.

[@malachimuhammad-dy2ow]

@fmnut What PRR line is this, and that's this station called?

[@fmnut]

Overbrook station on the Main Line.

[@Poisson4147]

To add a bit to fmnut's answer the line's now shared by SEPTA and Amtrak. For ages it was called the Paoli Line, then became the R-5 under SEPTA's ill-fated attempt to emulate Berlin's naming scheme, and has since semi-reverted to become "Paoli-Thorndale" to emphasize service extensions beyond Paoli. It's one of the better-maintained lines in either system simply because it carries so many passengers. Unfortunately there's still the eternal battle over which operator gets priority despite the fact that it's four tracks the whole way.

[@RedArrow73]

8:26 thru 8:37 is Drexelbrook.

[@RedArrow73]

Immediately fpollowing is Smedley Park, Media line. rrrrRIGHT, Media!

[@Trainmaster909]

This is art

[@ianhelps3749]

Great filming. Are any of these trams preserved?

[@mtheaney]

Some are still in service e.g. Girard Ave trolleys built in 1940s

[@jimboylan2]

0:25 Red Arrow looking towards Ardmore from the end of double track just South of County Line Rd before 1967. Car 9 is in the collection of the Electric City Trolley Museum & Station, Scranton, Pa.

[@jimboylan2]

6:49 Red Arrow 23 was at Rwys. to Yesterday, Rock Hill Furnace, Pa.

[@jimboylan2]

7:00 Red Arrow 24 is running at the Pa. Trolley Museum, Arden, Pa.

[@jimboylan2]

7:17 Red Arrow 21 was at the Shore Line Trolley Museum, Branford, Conn.