The PATCO High-Speedline is a rail line like others in America, but after today I wonder if its staff is trying to be a disgrace to the institution of rail travel or just being lax.
Today I pulled into a parking space at one of the suburban stations to board a train for Philadelphia, and was dismayed to find one had just pulled up. The normal schedule didn’t seem to match the time of this train’s arrival, but recently the company responsible for the line’s daily operations tried to limit service on weekends so they could install new track on the Ben Franklin Bridge, the train’s route between New Jersey and Philadelphia (they since discontinued that idea because of complaints about service delays affecting commuters), so I sighed and figured I should have arrived sooner, certain that at that point I could not possibly run fast enough to board before it pulled off.
Normally trains pull off immediately after everybody boards, but in the time it took me to pass through the turnstile, climb two dozen or so stairs and gain the platform, it still had not moved, nor had it signalled that it was preparing to pull off. As I reached the doors, they closed and the train pulled off. If the driver was looking, he should be cursed with socks that bunch at the ankles.
The next train pulled in some twenty minutes later to a crowded platform filled with early St. Patrick’s Day revelers on their way to bar hop like premature Easter bunnies on a binge through the local Irish watering holes in the City of Brotherly Love and liquor. We pulled off in a timely manner, but stopped midway to the next station, accompanied by an announcement that they would be resuming the trip in a couple of minutes. That was a relief, because the wait was going to make me late for a 2:00 show and it was 1:48 already.
At the next stop, the announcement came that the train had a problem and had to be taken out of service. So much for being there for curtain time. So a few hundred passengers were deposited at the station to board another train brought in for the occasion on the opposing track. We were a little more than fifteen minutes late resuming the trip.
PATCO has been having many difficulties with broken escalators, train cars well past their retirement age and lackluster use of whatever funding they do get. The experience of punctuality and quality service were lacking for my trip. I’m sure Londoners would not put up with such poor handling of even a weekend service. Next time I will be tempted to give more than an hour’s time for my trip (which normally takes about 20 minutes) or else take my car and pay way too much to park. You know things are bad when you can’t trust the trains anymore.
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