Railworks

Yes, it's an inconvenience. But what can you do? Not much, said commuter Martha Heid about SEPTA's $354 million RailWorks project - the refurbishing of deteriorating bridges, tracks and electrical work on six regional rail lines that is set to begin Sunday. "After commuting for eight years," Heid said, "you sort of just say, 'Whatever.' " And you keep on moving, always with several plans in mind. Heid, with co-worker and travel-mate Pat Loughin, might try taking their morning commute to the roadways instead of the railways, at least for the summer.

About 11,000 commuters have dropped from the ranks of those willing to travel detours caused by SEPTA's $354 million RailWorks reconstruction project, according to figures supplied by an independent commuter organization. The Delaware Valley Association of Railroad Passengers (DVARP) estimates that from March to April, ridership on the R2 Warminster, R3 West Trenton and R5 Doylestown lines dropped about 30 percent on the weekdays and 50 percent on the weekends. SEPTA officials contend that they have retained more riders on these lines than on others affected by RailWorks.

Sex. That's the missing ingredient in SEPTA's current program for rebuilding its rail facilities in the city, and it's one reason why funds for the effort are coming so slowly from the state and federal governments. That was the message a top state transportation official let out of the bag in a recent conversation, noting that the Pittsburgh transit system qualified for $50 million above its anticipated state and federal funding levels because it made a special case to provide a highly visible new bus service between downtown and its new metropolitan airport.

On a windblown viaduct near Girard Medical Center, a crew of helmeted men wasted little time yesterday getting started on the biggest construction project ever undertaken by SEPTA. Using newfangled power tools and other exotic-looking equipment, dozens of workers began removing the power lines and the steel rails that help carry 200 trains each day from Philadelphia's northern suburbs into Center City. It was the first day of RailWorks, the lofty name for a project to rebuild one of the most heavily traveled corridors in SEPTA's regional transit system.

Attention, passengers. Attention, passengers: All SEPTA trains continue through to Center City. The Suburban Station loudspeaker yesterday blared out the announcement that is music to the ears of thousands of rail commuters from Jenkintown to Doylestown. After 10 months of construction, RailWorks, the $264 million project to rebuild 4.5 miles of track between Wayne Junction and Center City, was open yesterday. So the trains rolled. From Fox Chase, from Lansdale, from Warminster, from Norristown, from Chestnut Hill and from West Trenton, they came.

Railworks, the project to rebuild SEPTA's most heavily used stretch of tracks, should easily wind down on schedule by Labor Day, and at a cost well below earlier estimates. After Sept. 4, the former Reading Railroad mainline between Wayne Junction in North Philadelphia and Market East station in Center City will again be handling more than 350 trains a day. The big question then will be: How many people will be aboard them? SEPTA ridership in all of its operations has fallen continuously since 1988, and it has lost rail passengers wholesale since Railworks disrupted operations beginning in April 1992.

For the next month, commuters who used to ride SEPTA's R-8 Fox Chase line from Northeast Philadelphia to Center City can once again catch rush-hour trains, and a group of rail passenger advocates is taking credit for the service. The R-8 line was shut down in April because of SEPTA's $354 million Railworks reconstruction project in North Philadelphia. SEPTA originally planned to return its regular commuter trains to the line in October, when Railworks construction halts for the winter, but instead started special direct service along the line more than a month early.

There's another detour ahead for thousands of riders on SEPTA's regional rail lines - a four-month service disruption to complete repairs on a critical section of tracks and bridges through North Philadelphia. Starting next weekend, SEPTA plans to halt service on three of its rail lines and curtail service on four others - the final phase of a massive reconstruction program known as RailWorks. By the time the dust clears and service returns to normal in September, SEPTA will have a virtually new railroad system through North Philadelphia, including a new train station at 11th and Berks streets to serve the Temple University area.

After spending $264 million to save the regional rail lines inherited from the Reading Railroad, SEPTA now faces a more difficult job: recapturing several thousand riders who left the system while the lines were under repair. SEPTA's mammoth RailWorks program officially ended yesterday, on schedule and way under its original $354 million budget, financed mostly with federal tax dollars. Altogether, the two-year renovation replaced 21 decrepit bridges, laid 16 miles of new track, installed 26 miles of overhead electric wire and built a new station near Temple University.

Beverly Tschida, who's lived in Spring Garden the past five years, had ridden subways in New York City and Mexico City, but never in Philadelphia. Until Railworks made her do it. To get to her job in Jenkintown, she used to catch one of the regional rail lines. Now those lines start at Fern Rock. So just before 7 a.m. yesterday, Tschida, who is in her 60s, walked to the Spring Garden station and cautiously climbed aboard a northbound Broad Street train, asking other passengers if she was in the right place.

Somewhere near SEPTA's R-5 Line in Malvern is the mass grave of 57 Irish workers who died while toiling on the railroad in the 1830s. For years, people have believed they were buried just feet from the track - one marker was placed at the spot in 1909, another in 1998. But recent research by two Immaculata University professors, William E. Watson and John Ahtes, now challenges that presumed location - and other aspects of the workers' sad story. "It's mostly myth and forklore until now," Watson said.

Earlier this month, SEPTA general manager Louis J. Gambaccini stepped down from his post as chairman of the American Public Transit Association (APTA), amid a confetti-like shower of accolades from his fellow transit administrators during the organization's annual convention in New Orleans. It is a common lament of local officials that sometimes their talents and achievements are recognized more clearly by people outside Philadelphia than in it. (Yes, Mayor Rendell, we hear you.)

There will be something missing Thursday from KYW Newsradio - the regular reports on traffic conditions, congestion and backups that are normally broadcast six times every hour. KYW has agreed to a one-day suspension of its popular traffic reports as part of a one-day effort to promote mass transit. Instead of describing the backups on I-95, the Blue Route and the Schuylkill Expressway, KYW plans to air "transit reports," describing the routine operations of the Broad Street Subway, the Market-Frankford Elevated and the regional rail lines.

After spending $264 million to save the regional rail lines inherited from the Reading Railroad, SEPTA now faces a more difficult job: recapturing several thousand riders who left the system while the lines were under repair. SEPTA's mammoth RailWorks program officially ended yesterday, on schedule and way under its original $354 million budget, financed mostly with federal tax dollars. Altogether, the two-year renovation replaced 21 decrepit bridges, laid 16 miles of new track, installed 26 miles of overhead electric wire and built a new station near Temple University.

Attention, passengers. Attention, passengers: All SEPTA trains continue through to Center City. The Suburban Station loudspeaker yesterday blared out the announcement that is music to the ears of thousands of rail commuters from Jenkintown to Doylestown. After 10 months of construction, RailWorks, the $264 million project to rebuild 4.5 miles of track between Wayne Junction and Center City, was open yesterday. So the trains rolled. From Fox Chase, from Lansdale, from Warminster, from Norristown, from Chestnut Hill and from West Trenton, they came.

Imagine a railroad so shiny new that even the rocks beneath the tracks are clean. It has a new station that has never yet smelled bad. It has miles and miles of concrete retaining walls that nobody has yet gotten around to painting with graffiti. All its bridges are in excellent repair and freshly painted. Its track is so smooth that electric trains glide along nearly noiselessly. That is the railway that SEPTA unveils to its riders beginning this morning with the official ending of the two-year RailWorks project.

In response to Jim Hunter's letter Aug. 11, I wish to state that SEPTA is one of the most reliable, attractive, secure and cost-efficient transit operations in the United States. And I am not the only one who says so. The management consultant firm of KPMG Peat Marwick concluded in a report last year that SEPTA compares favorably with its peers in most of the public transportation industry's standard measures of efficiency. These measures include operating cost per vehicle hour, operating cost per passenger mile, operating cost per vehicle revenue mile and operating cost per unlinked trip.

PRAYER IN SCHOOL: ANYONE'S PRAYER, EVEN AN ATHEIST'S Richard Weiss (letter July 29): I am not condoning teaching religion in public schools, but the American Civil Liberties Union is trying to do away with prayer of any kind or of any religion at any meeting of a group of people with different religions. I wouldn't care who said the prayer, including atheist Madelyn O'Hare. I would at least have the decency to hear them out. Our founding fathers had enough insight to include God in the Constitution, since they put the words "In God we trust" on currency which you and the ACLU don't mind putting in the bank or your pocket.

Railworks, the project to rebuild SEPTA's most heavily used stretch of tracks, should easily wind down on schedule by Labor Day, and at a cost well below earlier estimates. After Sept. 4, the former Reading Railroad mainline between Wayne Junction in North Philadelphia and Market East station in Center City will again be handling more than 350 trains a day. The big question then will be: How many people will be aboard them? SEPTA ridership in all of its operations has fallen continuously since 1988, and it has lost rail passengers wholesale since Railworks disrupted operations beginning in April 1992.

At the Norristown Transportation Center yesterday morning, SEPTA service supervisor William T. Ryals was standing at the side of the Center City express buses, bullhorn in hand. His mission was to help ease the pain of commuters from the northern suburbs whose trains will be out of service for the next four months, as the transit authority works to complete the second phase of RailWorks, its two- year bridge replacement and refurbishing project. On this day, his task looked easy.