The Cynwyd Line is a SEPTA Regional Rail line from Center City Philadelphia to Cynwyd in Montgomery County,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. Originally known as the Ivy Ridge Line, service was truncated on May 17, 1986, at its current terminus at Cynwyd. Track between Cynwyd and Ivy Ridge was dismantled between 2008 and 2010 for conversion as an interim

rail trail A rail trail is a shared-use path on railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed, but may also share the right of way with active railways, light rail, or streetcar ...

, preventing service restoration for the foreseeable future. The Cynwyd Line is the shortest of the SEPTA regional rail lines, and is the second-shortest regional rail line in the United States after New Jersey Transit's

Princeton Branch The Princeton Branch is a commuter rail line and service owned and operated by New Jersey Transit (NJT) in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The line is a short branch of the Northeast Corridor Line, running from Princeton Junction northwest to Prin ...

. It is by far the least ridden SEPTA Regional Rail Line. It is fully

grade-separated In civil engineering (more specifically highway engineering), grade separation is a method of aligning a junction of two or more surface transport axes at different heights (grades) so that they will not disrupt the traffic flow on other tran ...

Route

The Cynwyd Line runs from

Suburban Station Suburban Station is an art deco office building and underground commuter rail station in Penn Center, Philadelphia. Its official SEPTA address is 16th Street and JFK Boulevard. The station is owned and operated by SEPTA and is one of the three ...

to the 52nd Street Junction, where it diverges from

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

's Philadelphia-to-Harrisburg line. It makes station stops at Wynnefield Avenue, Bala, and Cynwyd before stopping just short of the Schuylkill River.

History

The Cynwyd Line is the truncated remnant of the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

's Schuylkill Branch, which ran from Philadelphia to

Pottsville, Pennsylvania Pottsville is the county seat of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 13,346 at the 2020 census, and is the principal city of the Pottsville, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area. The city lies along the west bank of th ...

. Electrified service was opened between Philadelphia and Norristown (Haws Avenue) on June 20, 1930. Plans for electrification beyond Norristown, to Phoenixville, were not carried out. Passenger service ended between Manayunk and Norristown on October 29, 1960 and the line beyond Manayunk was de-electrified, although the pylons remain. In 1980 SEPTA extended service from Manayunk to a new park-and-ride station at Ivy Ridge. Service beyond Cynwyd was suspended on May 27, 1986, because of poor track conditions and concerns about the

Manayunk Bridge The Manayunk Bridge (also known as the Manayunk Viaduct, Pencoyd Viaduct, and Schuylkill River Railroad Bridge) is an S-shaped former railroad bridge over the Schuylkill River, Schuylkill Canal and Schuylkill Expressway, that connects Bala Cyn ...

over the Schuylkill River. Between 1984–2010, the route was designated R6 Ivy Ridge (later R6 Cynwyd) as part of SEPTA's diametrical reorganization of its lines. Ivy Ridge Line trains operated through the city center to the

Manayunk/Norristown Line The Manayunk/Norristown Line is a commuter rail service in Southeastern Pennsylvania, and one of the 13 lines in SEPTA's Regional Rail network. It has the fourth highest ridership and the highest operating ratio (58%) on the SEPTA Regional Rail ...

on the ex-Reading side of the system. The R-number naming system was dropped on July 25, 2010. In the late 1990s and up to 2003, SEPTA funded a study called the

Schuylkill Valley Metro Schuylkill River Passenger Rail is a proposed passenger train service along the Schuylkill River between Philadelphia and Reading, Pennsylvania, with intermediate stops in Norristown, King of Prussia, Phoenixville, and Pottstown. Passenger trains ...

which included plans to extend both sides of the R6 line to Pottstown,

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

and

Wyomissing, Pennsylvania Wyomissing is a borough in Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The borough was established on July 2, 1906. As of the 2020 census, the population was 11,114, compared to 10,461 at the 2010 census. The growth was significantly larger betwe ...

. The project suffered a major setback when it was rejected by the FTA New Starts program, which cited doubts about the ridership projections and financing assumptions used by the study. Though there have been repeated calls to restore the "temporarily" discontinued service between Cynwyd and Ivy Ridge, SEPTA permanently dropped plans for restoration in 2008 when all trackage north of Cynwyd to Ivy Ridge was removed between 2008 and June 2010 to make way for the

Cynwyd Heritage Trail The Cynwyd Heritage Trail is a 1.8-mile rail trail in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, on Philadelphia's Main Line. The trail surface is partially asphalt and crushed stone. It follows the former SEPTA Cynwyd Line railway line from Cynwyd station to ...

and Ivy Ridge Trail. On October 29, 2010, the Cynwyd Line was where the

Silverliner V The Silverliner V is an electric multiple unit railcar designed and built by Hyundai Rotem. It is used by Philadelphia's SEPTA Regional Rail and Denver, Colorado's Regional Transportation District. This is the fifth generation railcar in the Silve ...

rail cars made their first run in revenue service, and, on June 29, 2012, where the final Silverliner IIs and IIIs ran in revenue service before being fully retired. SEPTA activated positive train control on the Cynwyd Line on November 21, 2016. On April 9, 2020, the line was suspended indefinitely due to a staff shortage caused by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. Limited service resumed on September 7, 2021.

Stations

The Cynwyd Line includes the following stations north of

30th Street Station 3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious or cultural significance in many societie ...

; stations indicated with gray background are closed.

Ridership

From fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2019, yearly ridership on the Cynwyd Line has ranged from 130,000 to 180,000, peaking at 184,138 in fiscal 2014. Ridership dipped to 122,510 in fiscal 2017 but recovered the following year. Trails End Cafe

Notes

References

External links

* {{Delaware Valley transit SEPTA Regional Rail Pennsylvania Railroad lines