Philadelphia: A Transit Treasure with Gas Tanks.

  Philadelphia, a historic city that is not too far away from New York is a transit treasure.  It has a subway and elevated lines, traditional streetcars, a streetcar subway, interurban style streetcar operations with trolley wire and third rail, and a large commuter rail system.  Philadelphia, like New York, did get rid most of its streetcar lines, but the trolley subway may have played a roll in saving some lines.  The Girard Avenue line was reconstructed and is currently PCC car equipped.  Some traditional streetcar routes, such as #23 Germantown Avenue are now bus operated even though SEPTA told that this bustitution would be temporary.  I am told that in Northern Philadelphia, some wire is still up and some track segments remain.  Philadelphia has  also three trolley bus routes in North Philadelphia that are still running,  but the two abandoned routes in South Philadelphia (Snyder and Tasker Morris) still have wire up.

I used Google to take a tour of the Snyder Avenue Line.  I punched in at random an address on Snyder Avenue and I got the following shot:

  This is at the western end of the line.  I believe that the route turns on 29th Street.  This is a one way loop with wire still up.  What do I see in the background,.... is that a gas tank?


I started to follow the street but the street ends and there is an expressway and the river with a name that is hard to pronounce.   Somehow, I Googled across the river to Passyunk, which is a historic town and near S. Newkirk Avenue, there is a baby gas tank, at least as of a few years ago.  Incidentally, the trackless trolley wire on Snyder is in bad shape.  I am not sure when the line was abandoned "temporarily".  From other sources, unfortunately, the trackless trolleys are difficult to operate and SEPTA is not to happy with electric surface transit, as I glean from subchat.

Sorry for the quality of the pictures.  The gas tank and its lattice support is probably large because it was visible from the trackless trolley loop which is quite far away. More to follow on Philadelphia.

Below is a recent news study about Philadelphia transit.

https://www.google.com/url?
sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newssearch&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjRkuOHi9zJAhVBOz4KHbYFANEQqQIIHCgAMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philly.com%2Fphilly%2Fbusiness%2F20151213_Hed_W_Initial_Caps.html&usg=AFQjCNHR_vtb2JbsP-JRUX6YvGn0fRrLqw&sig2=bndVPckRrLskrGcVC7TcOQ&bvm=bv.109910813,d.cWw