RAILFAN GUIDES of the U.S.


Todd's Railfan Guide to
the PATCO High Speed Line
aka: The Lindenwold High Speed Line, or PATCO
Port Authority Transit Corporation

Heavy Rail System between Philadelphia PA and Lindenwold NJ

In General
Getting Here
Map
Station by Station
Sights
Pictures
Signals
Floobydust
 

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In General

Location / Name:
Philadelphia PA; Camden NJ, southeast to Lindenwold NJ

What's Here:
the PATCO High Speed Line

Data:
GPS Coordinates: below
ZIP: below

Access by train/transit:
Riverline light rail in Camden at the Broadway station
SEPTA - the Market-Frankford "L" at the 8th & Market station in Philly
SEPTA - the Broad St line from the 15/16th St and 12/13th St stations in Philly
NJT Atlantic City line at the Lindenwold station
the 15/16th St and 12/13th St stations are ~4 blocks south from City Hall in Philly on Locust St
Busses at every station

The Scoop:

From Wikipedia: The PATCO Speedline, also known colloquially as the PATCO High Speed Line, Lindenwold High Speed Line, or simply PATCO, is a rapid transit system operated by the Port Authority Transit Corporation, which runs between Philadelphia PA and Camden County NJ.  The Speedline runs underground in Philadelphia, crosses the Delaware River on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, runs underground in Camden, then runs above ground in New Jersey until the east end of the line.  The Port Authority Transit Corporation and the Speedline are owned and operated by the Delaware River Port Authority.  Speedline operation began on February 15, 1969, with the first trip from Lindenwold NJ to Center City, Philadelphia.  The line transports over 38,000 people daily and operates 24 hours a day, one of only five U.S. rapid transit systems (the others being the New York City Subway, Staten Island Railway, the Red and Blue Lines of the Chicago 'L', and PATH) to do so.

History:

From Wikipedia: The modern-day PATCO Speedline follows the route of several mainline railroad lines, some dating back to the 19th century.  These railroads all terminated in Camden, where passengers could catch ferries across the Delaware River to Philadelphia.  Early in the 20th century, the idea of a fixed Delaware River crossing connecting Camden and Philadelphia gained traction, and in 1919, the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey formed the Delaware River Bridge Joint Commission to build a bridge between the two cities.  The Delaware River Bridge (now Ben Franklin Bridge) was designed to accommodate rail as well as road traffic; when it opened on July 1, 1926, it had two outboard structures beside the main roadway for rail and space for two streetcar tracks (never installed) on the main road deck.  Construction of the rail line did not actually begin until 1932, and the Bridge Line opened on June 7, 1936.  Relatively short, it only had four stations: 8th Street and Franklin Square in Philadelphia (the latter currently closed) and City Hall and Broadway in Camden (connecting to the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines at Broadway).

In Philadelphia, the line used a tunnel built in 1931 to serve both Ben Franklin Bridge trains and a Broad Street Subway spur designed to serve 8th and Market and the southern part of the city center via Locust Street.  The tunnel, which replaced an earlier proposal for a downtown subway loop, extended under 8th to Locust, then under Locust to 16th, but as tracks were not laid beyond 8th and Market, the first Bridge Line trains did not run beyond 8th Street into the Locust Street Subway until February 10, 1952.  This section is owned by the City of Philadelphia and leased by PATCO.

No sooner had the Bridge Line entered service than neighboring communities in Southern New Jersey began agitating for rapid transit extensions to serve them.  To facilitate their construction, the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania expanded the powers of the Delaware River Joint Commission, which owned the Ben Franklin Bridge and the New Jersey portion of the Bridge Line, rechristening it as the Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA) in 1951.  The agency commissioned Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Hall and MacDonald (now Parsons Brinckerhoff) to study possible rapid transit services for South Jersey; Parsons, Brinckerhoff's final report recommended building a new tunnel under the Delaware and three lines in New Jersey.  Route A would run to Moorestown, Route B to Kirkwood (now Lindenwold), and Route C to Woodbury Heights.  A later study by Louis T. Klauder & Associates recommended using the Bridge Line instead to reach Philadelphia and suggested building Route B first, as it had the highest potential ridership.

The last Bridge Line and Broad-Ridge Spur trains ran through the subway on August 23, 1968, when work began to convert the Locust Street and Camden subways for use by the new PATCO Speedline, which would use the Bridge Line subway to enter Philadelphia.  The new Speedline from Camden to Lindenwold opened on February 15, 1969, along former Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines trackage.  Woodcrest Station was added later, in 1980, between the existing Haddonfield and Ashland stations.

Acknowledgements:


Websites and other additional information sources of interest for the area:
http://www.ridepatco.org/pdf/PATCO_Timetable.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATCO_Speedline

Aerial shots were taken from either Google Maps or www.bing.com/maps as noted.  Screen captures are made with Snagit, a Techsmith product... a great tool if you have never used it! 

Getting Here

Getting to G


Maps




 

 







  Here's one if you want to do a station by station Pub Crawl :-)


Station by Station


15-16th St - Philadelphia

GPS Coordinates: 39.948637, -75.167804




12-13th St - Philadelphia

GPS Coordinates: 39.947939, -75.162381

 


the Cars

     


9-10th St - Philadelphia

GPS Coordinates: 39.947365, -75.157634


8th & Market - Philadelphia

GPS Coordinates: 39.951149, -75.153573

The 8th Street station serves both SEPTA and PATCO.  SEPTA owns the station, PATCO leases their "space".  PATCO is on the lower level and runs north-south.  SEPTA is on the upper level and runs east-west, this is the Market-Frankford El (even though it is underground here).  More info here

My best friend and I rode part of the PATCO line in August 2014 as part of a trip from Wilmington DE to NYC and back via all transit.  We boarded PATCO at the 8th & Market station, and got off at the Broadway station in Camden to transfer to the River Line light rail.  At the time, PATCO was doing an extensive track replacement project on the Ben Franklin bridge and had one side of the bridge shut down.  During the track repair PATCO had special timetables in effect.

       
       

               

             



Over the Ben Franklin Bridge

 

The six following pictures are from M Libby... Thanks!



















City Hall - Camden NJ

GPS Coordinates: 39.945704, -75.121142





Broadway - Camden NJ - the Walter Rand Transportation Center

GPS Coordinates: 39.943110, -75.119707

   





Ferry Ave

GPS Coordinates: 39.922863, -75.092038







Collingswood

GPS Coordinates: 39.913599, -75.064545









Westmont

GPS Coordinates: 39.907805, -75.046533

The NJT commuter line joins/splits off from the PATCO line just south of the station.











Mt Vernon Overpass

GPS Coordinates: 39.901634, -75.039473





Haddonfield

GPS Coordinates: 39.897611, -75.037197









Woodcrest

GPS Coordinates: 39.870145, -75.011257

The Woodcrest station has four tracks, one for the NJT Atlantic City trains, and three for the PATCO trains. 
The PATCO line is a 2-track line, but there are three tracks going through the Woodcrest station.









Ashland

GPS Coordinates: 39.858720, -75.009208







Lindenwold

GPS Coordinates: 39.834013, -75.000758

Lindenwold is the last stop on the south end of the line.  "On the other side" of Lindenwold are the shops - these are the tracks that continue "southward".  There is a flyover for PATCO to cross the NJT line.  The New Jersey Transit Atlantic City line also has a stop here, and you can transfer (paid) to that line.











The Shops









 



Signals


PATCO uses standard metro style red and lunar/white signals instead of the more traditional green/yellow/red type.

                    at 8th & Market



Pictures













Floobydust



Disclaimers:

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.... a GPS is OK to get somewhere, but maps are still better if you get lost!  I belong to AAA, which allows you to get local maps for free when you visit the local branches.  ADC puts out a nice series of county maps for the Washington DC area, but their state maps do not have the railroads on them.  If you can find em, I like the National Geographic map book of the U.S..... good, clear, and concise graphics, and they do a really good job of showing you where tourist type attractions are, although they too lack the railroads.  Other notes about specific areas will show up on that page if known.

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.

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NEW 05/15/2016
Last Modified 15-Sep-2016