The North Avenue facility was built in a former Pennsylvania RR Yard, part of
which was retained for use as a transload facility for (mostly) dangerous
liquids. It was built concurrent with the first phase of the Light Rail
System, and opened in 1991 to serve the testing of the LRV's when they arrived
on the property prior to the opening of the system on April 1992.
The Cromwell facility was built around 1997, and although open in 1998 when I
left the MTA, it was not being used as an active maintenance facility until a year or so
later.
Trains going into the main shops at North Avenue pull into the North Avenue
station, unload passengers, then call Light Rail Control for permission to
enter the yard, using either Yard Lead A or Yard Lead B.
Trains at Cromwell have two storage leads past the end of the Cromwell station -
but only from one of the tracks, the other dead-ends after the parking lot
access road!? So only one of the station tracks can be used for access into the yard. I
dunno who designed this, but the layout defies logical thinking. :-) My
guess they were too cheap to put in another switch - cost drives almost every
decision the MTA makes about what to add..
Here is one view of the area where the North Avenue facility is built (just
barely).... the yard is at the very top of the picture. The picture shows
(now) Penn Station on the right, and the tracks heading towards Washington DC
and the Northern Central on the right. Somewhere, I have a better picture
of the area with more detail.
I love trains, and I love signals. I am not an
expert.
Please Note:
Since the main focus of my two websites is railroad signals, the railfan guides
are oriented towards the signal fan being able to locate them. For those
of you into the modeling aspect of our hobby, my
indexa page has a list of
almost everything railroad oriented I can think of to provide you with at least a few pictures to
help you detail your pike.
If this is a railfan page, every effort has
been made to make sure that the information contained on this map and in this
railfan guide is correct. Once in a while, an error may creep in :-)
My philosophy: Pictures and maps are worth a
thousand words, especially for railfanning. Text descriptions only
get you so far, especially if you get lost or disoriented. Take
along good maps....
By the way, floobydust is
a term I picked up 30-40 years ago from a National Semiconductor data
book, and means miscellaneous and/or other stuff.
Pictures and additional information is always needed if anyone feels
inclined to take 'em, send 'em, and share 'em, or if you have
something to add or correct.... credit is always given! BE NICE!!! Contact info
is here
Beware: If used as a source, ANYTHING from Wikipedia must be treated as
being possibly being inaccurate, wrong, or not true.
