CONRAIL’S CAST-OFF COMMUTERS: 3 30 YEARS OF SEPTA
The changeover on January 1, 1983, came and went with no new contract. The unions surprised SEPTA and its passengers by going out on strike on March 15, 1983. The strike lasted 108 days when the last union agreed to a contract with SEPTA. The workers would still be railroad workers and paying into Railroad Retirement, but the pay scale was much lower than the same jobs on Conrail or Amtrak. Many engineers went back to Conrail, leaving SEPTA with no choice but to annul trains that summer due to a lack of qualified train crews. SEPTA began a program to train new workers but this training took time to get the new hires up to speed.
ABOVE: A SEPTA/Reading Silverliner II m.u. train lays over at Doylestown on March 28, 1973. These were amongst the first cars fi- nanced by the PSIC. LEFT: Some cars carried legacy logos into the 1980s. A SEPTA/PRR Sil- verliner I m.u. visited West Trenton, N.J., on November 14, 1987. RICHARD O. ADAMS PHOTOS
into Railroad Retirement or the rail- road version of workers compensation, Federal Employers Liability Act. Well- known passenger train activist Lettie Gay Carson formed the Newtown Area Rail Action Committee to protest the new shuttle operation and to prevent the abandonment of the branch alto- gether. Ms. Carson certainly had reason to
be alarmed as SEPTA and PennDOT discontinued all diesel-hauled trains to Bethlehem, Reading, and Newtown on June 30, 1981. For a brief period shut- tle trains operated between Norristown and Pottstown and between Lansdale and Quakertown. On Friday, July 31, 1981, the last runs of the RDC powered Crusader and Wall Street took place be- tween Philadelphia and Newark, N.J. Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thorn- burgh ordered PennDOT to eliminate the train service and cut off funding to
any service outside of the original five- county charter area. Thornburgh later fired PennDOT Deputy Secretary Ed Tennyson for refusing to carry out his order. As a result, the areas north and west of Philadelphia are amongst the largest metropolitan areas on the East Coast without any form of rail mass transit. Today U.S. Route 422 is a four- lane congested highway between Pottstown and Philadelphia as is State Route 309 between Philadelphia and Allentown, as well as the Northeast Ex- tension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. When NERSA was signed into law during the summer 1981 the clock start- ed ticking for SEPTA to find someone other than Conrail to operate its com- muter trains when the bell tolled mid- night on January 1, 1983. In the NERSA bill was the provision to create the Northeast Commuter Services Corpora- tion to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Amtrak. SEPTA negotiated with both Amtrak and the Boston & Maine Rail- road (successful operators of Boston’s commuter lines for the MBTA with whom Gunn already had experience). In the end though, SEPTA chose to operate the trains on its own. Conrail employees in the Philadelphia area had to make a decision — stay with Conrail in freight service, go to work for Am- trak, or go to SEPTA. Under the nego- tiated
union agreements employees
had a provision called “flow back” that allowed SEPTA employees a one-way ticket back to Conrail or Amtrak.
On February 1, 1984, Gunn departed SEPTA for the Metropolitan Trans- portation Authority where he went on to rebuild the crumbling New York City subway system.
The Center City Tunnel Project The Center City Commuter Connec- tion (CCCC) was opened in November 1984 and connected Philadelphia’s two stub-end terminals (PRR’s Suburban Station and Reading Terminal) through
a new 1.7 mile tunnel.
Philadelphia Mayor Frank L. Rizzo dusted off the 1958 proposal to connect the PRR and the Reading lines by building a tunnel east from Suburban Station and building a new below- grade station to bypass the existing tracks of the Reading at Reading Ter- minal. Rizzo was convinced that the tunnel could be his legacy to the city, even though there were loud protests from city residents for new buses and subway cars. City residents thought Rizzo’s priorities were out of line with their needs, as the tunnel would only benefit suburban commuters and busi- nesspeople. Rizzo pressed on, arguing that buying new buses would keep peo- ple in Detroit employed, building the Center
City Tunnel Philadelphia would keep
Philadelphians employed. The tunnel also would help draw riders to the new route being planned to link Center City with the
International
Airport (PHL) located south of town. Students would also benefit from the tunnel and airport projects as the new University City station was built to serve both the University of Pennsylva- nia and Drexel University.
The new four-track tunnel would be extended east from existing tracks in Suburban Station eastward to the new “Market East” station (at 11th and Market Streets) 35 feet below street level. The Market East station was also connected with a new shopping com- plex named Gallery II. Beyond Market East the tracks then make a 90 degree
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