Revisiting the Trolley Blitz
September 27, 2021
This summer, SEPTA wrapped up another Trolley Blitz, a temporary shutdown of the Center City trolley tunnel to accomplish critical maintenance work. This year’s 16-day shutdown went above and beyond, future-proofing the trolley system for Trolley Modernization.
Trolley Modernization is SEPTA’s plan to make the entire trolley network accessible to people with disabilities and dramatically improve service reliability and frequency. The project involves a series of key upgrades, particularly the acquisition of new, longer, low-floor trolleys, and constructing station platforms—not just stop signs—for every underground and on-street trolley station.
Here’s how SEPTA made progress on Trolley Modernization during this year’s Blitz (and don’t forget to check out our pre-Blitz round-up):
New overhead wire for future, accessible trolleys
Trolleys are all-electric (major points for sustainability) and powered by an overhead contact wire. In order to operate new, low-floor trolleys, we need to convert the existing overhead contact system from a trolley pole to pantograph—the world standard for overhead contact wires. Unlike poles, pantographs make it much harder for the trolley to get detached from the overhead wire—a source of delays for existing trolleys.
SEPTA used this year’s Blitz to replace almost five miles of overhead wire, which has to be replaced every seven to eight years. The wires on the future trolley pantographs will have a much longer useful lifespan, 15-20 years.
Station state of good repair to support transition to accessible platforms
To make SEPTA’s trolley network fully accessible to people with disabilities, we need to make stations accessible—not just the trolleys themselves. That means elevators for underground stations and raised platforms to board the trolley.
Our underground trolley stations have a major makeover ahead of them. To make sure they’re ready, we used this Blitz to bring the stations to a state of good repair. Our crews replaced and repaired overhead beams, columns, doors, plumbing and demoed & poured reinforced concrete.
Bright, freshly painted and cleaned underground stations
Although Trolley Modernization is our focus, thousands of people rely on the trolley network right now. To make sure they have a good experience, we freshened up our underground stations. SEPTA painted stairs, track walls, and crosswalks at the 40th Street portal. They also cleaned the stations and removed debris.
Check out the concrete pouring work for the resulting new platform at 22nd Street in this time lapse video!
Click to learn more about Trolley Modernization!
