Some Lehigh Valley Transit Pictures

[daveklepper]

Someone else can provide the exact locations.

 

I assume the standing operator is Charlie Houser.

[daveklepper]

Richard Allman identified the "meet" at "Broad Siding."

[daveklepper]

And the first picture in front of the Landsdale LVT Station/

[daveklepper]

Ex-Dayron & Troy Cincinnati Curve-Side as Easton Limited, no discharge stops Allentown to Bethlahem, no pickup stops Bethlahem to Allentown, in Allentown

Ex C&LE Liberty Bell car loading at 8th & Hamilton in Allentown

Ex-C&LE Liberty Bell approaching 69th St. Terminal on the Philadelphia and Western

[daveklepper]

Richard Allman told me the location of this photo of mine, but I seem to have lost the email.  Something like Broad Valley siding, with me under a Reading branchline bridge.  I someone knows the name of the branch, and does someone still operate it, please post.

The ex-Dayton and Troy Cincinatti lightweight is approaching the Town Green loop in Easton, the Easton Limited terminal.

1010 is not approaching the 69th St. Terminal but is on the LVT layouver siding there.

[rcdrye]

It's Broad Siding on the south side of Lansdale.  The former Reading line is owned by CSX and operated by Pennsylvania Northeastern which contracts for CSX, interchanging in Lansdale.

[daveklepper]

Thanks.  Name of the branch when operated by the Reading, and where does it go now?

[rcdrye]

From what I can find it's the Stony Creek line, actually owned by SEPTA. It wanders south from Lansdale to Norristown.  There was some movement to restore passenger service 15 or so years ago, but it hasn't happened yet.

[Flintlock76]

Lansdale!  I've been there, several times.  Nice town, and a lot of fun.

The old Reading station's still there in all it's majesty, and here it is...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lansdale_station#/media/file:Lansdale_SEPTA_station_October_2018.jpeg  

Here's the whole story...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lansdale_station  

[daveklepper]

Doesn't mention LVT-Liberty Bell until 1956 on the other side of the station, streeet-running.

[daveklepper]

It took lots of work to get a respectable image from a very deteriorated negative, but I think the meet at Broad Siding is worth the effort.  The photo was snapped just after the one framed by the Reading bridge, with the ex-C&LE Liberty Bell car running through at speed.  This explains why it leans less from the super-elevation of the curve than does the fan-trip car, which is stationary.

The question could be asked:  Why super-elevation for the siding as well as for the main?  The answer is both tracks are main tracks.  Like most single-track trolley lines, most passing sidings on single-track sections of the LVT had spring switches at both ends, and cars and trains always took the right-hand track, regardless of whether there was a meet or not.

[daveklepper]

From Richard Allman:

Broad Siding was the longest on the Liberty Bell line-around a mile- and there was almost always a meet there. The Reading line overhead was the Stony Creek branch, which ran south from the main line to Bethlehem. Attached is a William Watts photo of a southbound Lansdale-Norristown local, one of the 1906(?) St. Louis-built cars that were the backbone of the LVT local operations until the 1938-39 modernization when the ex-Steubenville, Liverpool and Beaver Valley cars replaced them on local service on the Liberty Bell line. This area today is unrecognizable!

 

[daveklepper]

And another downtown Easton photo

[Miningman]

 Nice pic. Busy place. What's needed is a comparative picture as it appears now.

[daveklepper]

But who will go to Easton, PA. without either an interurban or a regular passenger train to ride?

[Miningman]

Yes, tragically the Streetcars and Interurbans are absent now and gone.  The Lehigh Valley is gone too.  All those cars are scrapped, many, most of the people have passed. I wonder if that nice clock and the Lafeyette Hotel are still there?  

I think there were a lot of Hotels named Lafayette in the day, it's a good name for a Hotel, classy and sturdy. The kind of place where you enjoy a nice cigar. That's gone too! 

[daveklepper]

I have to rest content that I can ride Jerusalem light rail anytime I want to, and downtown, in a pedestrianized zone, it certainly behaves like a streetcar.  Farther into northern residential areas, one stretch is "interurbanish."

[daveklepper]

And Richard Allman's comment on the downtown Easton photo:

Looking west on Northampton Street with Easton-bound 1100 car.   My comment:

If I remember correctly, the tracks for the loop around the circle behind me when photograahing formed a comlete circle wiith an entrance and an exit switch, which allowed the incoming Cincinnati Curve-side 1100 to leave ahead of our fan-trip car even though arriving after it.

 

[daveklepper]

And you residing in the USA do have interurban lines to ride, but they are called light rail.  I rode the following USA interurbans before they quit:  Liberty Bell and Eastern Limited, Laural Line (Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley), Pittsburgh Railways Charleroi/Roscoe and Washington, Baltimore and Anapolis, the three Chicago Insulls (Aurora, Batavia, and Elgin, and Shore Line and Skokie Valley and Mundelein, South Shore to downtown), Waterloo, Ceder Falls, and Northern, Charles City Western in a freight motor, and the complete post=WWII West Penn system, all six interurban routes plus the local Connolsville - S.Connolsville streetcar.  And the experience is not much different on the new lines I was able to ride before moving to Israel, particularliy the Baltlmore line over the old PRR Baltimore Northern, San Diego - San Yesidro, and the line to the east, Portland's MAX system, and of course the recreation of the PE line LA - Long Beach.  West Penn and the North Shore were pretty special, however, and very difficult to replace.  Well, I suppose all were special in their own way.  But maybe some of the new ones will be just as special.  Has any poster ridden St. Louis - Bellville?  That should be a winner.

 

[daveklepper]

Again, a suburban fantrip car on the Liberty Bell route.

[daveklepper]

[daveklepper]

Previous photo meet between Bethlhem and Easton.  Below Philadelhia and Western Stratford cars, I think at 69th Street.

[daveklepper]

812, the single original Liberty Bell wood interurban car not converted into a freight motor:

[daveklepper]

Frpm Richard Allman regarding the immediately preceding photo:

LVT car 812 is southbound at Acorn siding behind Normandy Farms. This was the third siding north of Norristown . Liberty Bell Limited car and Lansdale local often had meet there.

[daveklepper]

Just received from R. A,:

MY MISTAKE-YIKES! THIS WAS NORTHBOUND-THE FENCE WAS ON THE NORTHBOUND SIDE, AS WAS THE DIVERTING TRACK IN ACORN SIDING-SORRY FOR EARLIER ERROR!

 

[daveklepper]

Rick msy provide the location of the P&W Powerhouse.

[daveklepper]

From Richard:

Ok. David-here is the story. The power house shown is not LVT-it is the Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated of PRT/PTC. It was shot from roughly where the outbound platform was for northbound P&W and LVT cars. See the third rail for the work car, which is underrunning? The tracks I the foreground were shared by LVT and P&W.

[daveklepper]

Also from Richard, regarding my photo of the two Strafford Phil. & Western cars (69th St. Terminal):

Ok- this view was taken from the inbound platform and shows the upper level outbound track and platform. It was rarely or never used as a boarding since boarding was easier at the lower level which was at same level as the Market Frankford El.    Cars were stored there in off peak and weekends but almost never Bullet cars. For obvious reasons it was a popular place for fan trip boarding.

[daveklepper]

This photo is posted esspecially for RC.  The interior of Liberty Bell ex-Indiana 1030 before it was converted to coach.

Is the interior at Seashore like this?

 

[rcdrye]

I wish I had seen this earlier yesterday so I could have done a comparison. 1030 was outside at Seashore as part of a bunch of positioning moves to get it (and a bunch of other cars) in place so they can get some shop time.  The interior might not be laid out exactly as shown, but the parlor-style chairs are on it, which replaced the coach seats it had in it's last couple of years on the LVT.  I'll look more closely the next time I'm there.

Just to close up an old thread, 1030 was equipped with Cincinnati arch-bar trucks (off of the damaged 1004, if I remember right), because the Commonwealth trucks Indiana RR used did not have enough room for a third rail beam, required for the car's use on the P&W.  The other change was to the body, providing an extra exit door also required by the P&W.  The cahnge made the car look very much like the ex-C&LE cars.