The itinerary last year consisted of a Southwestern double triangle trip. We started out with a trip on the R2 to Wilmington and Back. Then a walking transfer to the Rt 102 at Sharon Hill, which we rode to 69th St for lunch and then caught a Rt 100 to Norristown for another connection with the R6, which took us to North Broad for a connection to the BSS, up and around the Fern Rock loop and back down to the Rt 15 which was taken to the Westmoreland loop.
So any of you who have thought about attending one of these trips, bur never pulled the trigger CHECK OUT THESE PHOTOS and see what you are missing.
On our trip to Wilmington our R2 local train was stopped at HOLLY interlocking so that we could be overtaken by an ACELA express, just before being passed by one coming in the opposite direction.
Following the ACELA we got a Medium Approach signal pulled up. As we proceeded through the interlocking I noticed that flank protection was applied when trains were routed from the local onto the main. This means that the switch to the freight track was set to divert any train violating the Stop signal out of the way of a colision.
At Wilmington station most of the trip participants confined themselves to the new high level wooden platform which was installed because NS no longer runs freight trains through the station. I got this well lit shot of BRANDY interlocking at the south end of the platform.
On the north end was WINE interlocking, here displaying the signal pulled up for our departing R2 train.
The trip disembarked from SEPTA S-IV #444 at Sharon Hill before making the trek to the Sharon Hill Rt 102 station.
The routes 101 and 102 are currently undergoing a rebuilt, but that project had not yet started in December of 2008. Here are Trolley, #105, ducks under the CSX Philly Sub bridge before arriving at the Sharon Hill station.
We had time to take some pictures of #105 before boarding.
