From the PRR days to today (SEPTA and NJT) have any of the Arrow or Silverliner fleet ever venture out of their regular terrritories? i.e Arrows to Philly and Silverliners to NYP
My memory is a bit unclear about this but I believe that Silverliners were occasionally used to cover Philadelphia-Harrisburg trips, which is beyond the end of the Main Line suburban zone.
Pennsy Power II has a pic of Silverliners at Elizabeth, but it says it’s a “special”. One of the Morning Suns shows a 5-car Silverliner train at Harrison-- no other info.
It seems Silverliners were always? intended to run to Harrisburg.
Seeing the heading containing Arrow, I thought that it referred to the Pennsy Red Arrow, which I remember in the 1950s on the Pennsy main line from to . The Red Arrow was one of the “Fleet” that passed from to through in early evening. Actually, the Red Arrow was from , but it joined the Pennsy mainline at , about 80 miles west of . The other members of the “Fleet” were led by the Manhattan Limited #22, the Admiral, (Red Arrow), the Trail Blazer/General, and the Broadway Limited in about 30 minute intervals.
The Manhattan Limited was the only one that stopped in , then a prosperous steel manufacturing city of 35,000. Although, was a flag stop for the west bound Admiral around 7:30 am. The east bound trains, other than
In the early years of Amtrak, the Philly - Harrisburg trains were covered by leased Silverliner IIs - they had bathrooms in them. (they also made the trip in 1:40, I believe.)
During my acoustics consulting career, I had a good many jobs in Lancaster, PA. I rode the Harrisburg service during the period that Amtrak leased SEPTA Silverliners for the service. Also, at one time, NJT and SEPTA did pool mu equipment for through Suburban Station to Penn Station service, and the timetables noted which trains were Silverliners and which were Arrows. They never, ever mu’d. I am not sure that they could, they may have different coupler face contacts for the communications signalling, control of lighting, etc., even if traction power and braking use the same contacts. This though operation did not last more than one year.
I can recall riding the first series of Jersey Arrows, the ones with the prominent hump on the roof, from the BWI Airport station of Amtrak in 1978’s Winter. The EMUs were rented from NJTransit to fill-in for Amtrak equipment after the Christmas-New Year’s Day travel period. I can recall the narrowness of the seat placement in those cars. I’m 6’-4" tall and I could not sit in a normal position in the seats. I had to sit at a 45 degree angle to be comfortable. I rode the Reading Company-Pennsylvania Railroad-SEPTA Silver Liners and never had that problem. My trip was a slow local service making all the stops and I exited the train at 30th St. Station in Philly. I was thankful for the ride that snowy day, despite the bounces and rolling of the NJT equipment, and never saw the NJT eqpt. that far south again. Having been spoiled by Amtrak’s original METROLINER first-class service since the early '70s, and being a railfan since childhood, that NJT Arrow experience was fun and a good memory!
BWItraveler - Welcome to trains.com! [C):-)]
Here’s one in action:
When?
The question of compatibility between Silverline IVs & Vs is somewhat complicated. SEPTA IVs and Vs WILL not be scheduled to run together on same train but can operate traction motors. If a train of either type breaks down for some reason the other type can tow or push the offender to clear the track. Several features of the Vs are not on IVs. Regenerative braking not on IVs. Vs regen will run utilities on car first then put excess if any back into CAT.Door control different. Destination signs different with Vs able to display any message via LED sign lighting controlled by engineer or conductor. don’t remember if PAs compatible. There is provision to add center tap on the transformer of Vs for 25 Kv operation ( probably not needed for 20 years ) with controls in cab for same installed though inactive. . None exists for IVs.
What year did NJT and SEPTA pool equipment for through service?
I appreciate the experiences and information all of you have shared.
They never pooled equipment. Generally, Silverliners Stayed in Philly, and Arrows Stayed in New Jersey.
Here it all is spelled out simply-
During the Early 70s, long trains of Silverliners IIs and III did make a few New York-Phildelpahia runs. I’m thinking it was for some sort of event like the World’s fair, but I can’t remember or find it easily right now.
Through out the 1970s, Amtrak leased Silverliners (usually a pair of Silverliner IIIs) for Philadelphia-Harrisburg. These were train # 600-621. there were 9 faily trains, plus 2 trains on Mondays and Fridays.
This is the Extent of Silverliners traveling beyond their usual territory. It seems that SEPTA is not interested in leasing out its equipment.
The Jersey Arrows on the other hand roam the electrified lines more frequently.
Arrow IIs were leased both by MDOT (what would become MARC) and Amtrak.
Mostly Arrow IIs (and some Arrow IIIs) showed up in Maryland between the summer of 1978, and some point into 1979. These were leased to help phase out the old MP54s running between Baltimore and Washington DC.
Amtrak Leased Arrow IIs for Harrisburg-New York Penn Service around 1980. Amtrak also leased Arrow IIs for Clocker service between Philadelphia and New York on off-peak hours.
I’m also told that the Arrow IIs were sometimes run on Amtrak’s “Chesepeake”, but I don’t know anything about this train.
In Generall, Amtrak has always Leased out Arrow III sets from NJ transit on Holidays like Thanksgiving, and it would not be unusual to see a large Arrow III consist in Philadelphia or Baltimore in and around that time.
Nice photo, Don - and great and very ‘heads-up’ to have captured that comparatively rare equipment in this service, during an otherwise uninteresting transitional era (meaning I wasn’t foresighted enough to do likewise . . . ). Thanks for sharing ! [tup]
- Paul North.
While on the subject of the Arrows, Does anyone know the precise dates that Maryland Leased the Arrow IIs?
How many Arrow IIs remained in New Jersey during the late 70s, How many were leased away?
That is the problem with the Late 1970s, everyone found it “uninteresting”, even though it was a major turning point in American railroads.
These MU cars are a probably the worst victim of “nobody cares”. Because they were so ubiquitous, and because they didn’t have much of any “Fallen Flag” in them, it seems that few to photographs of them, and fewer saved any information on them.
There is much misinformation, and mistakes that are rapidly being transformed into “Fact by consensus”, and it makes it very difficult to research any of it, since so few source are reliable, or consistent with one another
For example, i will probably never get a straight answer to my question on the Arrow II Lease. There will be knowledgeable people who give me some information, but no body seems to know the real details. Surely there is a railroad document somewhere that covers this, but I haven’t found it.
Yes. It was an early morning train from Phila to DC that ran before the first morning Metroliner. Lasted a year or two in the early 80s.