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Red Arrow Liberty Liners; what were these for exactly?
Topic Started: Jan 16 2006, 02:38 AM (1,289 Views)
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To my understanding from what i was able to find on the web, the 2 Liberty Liners, "Independence Hall" and "Valley Forge", were originally purchased from the North Shore Lines for a proposed extension to Downingtown via the Reading Chester Valley Branch and P&W line. Unfortunately that didnt occur, and they were just run along the P&W line. My question is, what were they used for on the P&W? Were they for limited peak hour service only? Was there a premium for using these services, as I know there was a lounge and bar?

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Of course, these cars were completely wrong for this line for a various reasons (I cant even imagine cars like those operating on the 100 today!), but how long did they manage to last in service?

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CACrafter88bk2504
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They were mainly used for charters & on occasion,rush hour service on the P & W( a rareity of course). They arrived on Red Arrow propertysometime in 1964 & they were taken off of SEPTA property sometime in 1980. They never saw much use during that time.
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Michael-T-Greene
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CACrafter88bk2504
Jan 16 2006, 12:39 PM
They were mainly used for charters & on occasion,rush hour service on the P & W( a rareity of course). They arrived on Red Arrow propertysometime in 1964 & they were taken off of SEPTA property sometime in 1980. They never saw much use during that time.

For the first few weeks in service, the Libertyliners were used in 7-day/week service. Later in, they ran only in the rush hours, but were regulars at it until SEPTA bought Red Arrow in 1970. They last ran ca. 1976. Also, when they ran, it was a regular-fare service...of course, you did have to pay for the drinks...they had both soft drinks as well as alcoholic beverages. Did get to sample the former, but was too young for the latter.
Also, after their withdrawl from SEPTA, PATCO made an informal bid for the cars, hoping to use them in rush hour service. Unfortunately, that never happened...quite a shame. They would have been almost operationally compatible with the PATCO trains, except that Liners would have caught up to PATCO trains, since the Liners had a higher top speed potential...they could easily reach 80 MPH in their North Shore days, w/600VDC...imagine their speed w/750VDC!-MTG
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Transit_Advocate929
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Yeah, the thing that mainly got them takem out of service were the accidents that kept occurring on the line. I'm pretty sure you all remember (those old enough to remember anyway) when car 167 went through the wall at 69th Street Terminal on Track 1 back in 1989. This is why you can't go directly from track 1 to track 2 without going back into the terminal. The car severed the old connection behind the bumper when it knocked it through the terminal wall. By the time I started riding the P&W, the Straffords and CTA cars were on their way out the door, but I did manage to get a ride on both types as well as the MFL M3 double-enders (601, the stalker, LOL!!) and the prototype N5 (451 before it was renumbered to 130 and while it still had black trim around the windows). Ah, those were the days. If only we could live like then........
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Yeah the 100/P&W was quite interesting back in the day. I never got to ride or see the Strafford cars, but I did see a Bullet car (didnt know it when i saw it as a little kid) as well as ride regularly the CTA cars and occasionally the M3s.

Now it's just N-5s...sigh. Additionally, it appears that SEPTA slowed the line down a good bit - no more 80 mph right?

However, at least ridership has increased a good bit!

I never got to see 451 in person (i'm guessing 130 was "repainted" in today's N-5 scheme), but I did see a mockup of it on the rt 100 schedules in the earlier 90's back when SEPTA had drawings of various vehicles on their schedules. In fact, it actually had rear view mirrors on the drawing on the schedule!

Also, never realized what that model in the 69th Street customer service office was for until i was old enough to put 2 and 2 together (and when the N-5s came in of course).

I wish in today's world, though, you could expect to see more than one vehicle type on a light rail line!

Btw, check the next generation of schedules - they have before and after pictures on the 100, 101, and 102 - pretty interesting to see they actually had pictures from that time!
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