PRR Legacy News

I have two bits of news here regarding the Port Road/Enola Branch and SEPTA's ARSENAL reconstruction project.  On the Port Road I had previously reported that new-new signals had been spotted at CP-COLA in anticipation of a Rule 562 conversion that had been hinted at for some time.  Updated information shows no evidence of either new signals or "C" boards at CP-COLA or CP-LAKE indicating that NS seems to be fine with leaving the 2012 vintage signals in place with 562 in operation to the north and south.  I also came into possession of some interior photos of COLA tower and the CTC console has indeed been removed, but many other vintage components remain untouched since the tower was closed in the 1980's and decommissioned as a relay room in around 2012.

In SEPTA land, SEPTA will be undertaking an additional rebuild of the ARSENAL interlocking area between May 10th and 31st.  As previously reported ARSENAL's limits will be extended down the R3 West Chester line to include an additional crossover and a new turnback track and crossover will be installed between the current north limited of ARSENAL and University City station.  Finally, WALNUT interlocking is to be eliminated in some fashion. 

It is unclear what the new arrangement will entail signal wise.  ARSENAL and the WALNUT locations could use some or all of its PL's.  The elimination of WALNUT is also somewhat short sighted as it will drastically lengthen the distance between a full crossover and the 30th St station platform with the crossover capacity now being south of the University City.  Under single track operation wrong railing trains will now have to make a station stop at University City before they can clear the bottleneck whereas before they could wait at University City while waiting to cross over.