Philadelphia is served by two major transit companies:
SEPTA, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority
PATCO, the Port Authority Transit Corporation
PATCO services New Jersey
from Camden down to Lindenwold, but includes four stops in Philadelphia in order
to provide their riders with access to Philadelphia. It is a Heavy Rail
line, and runs over the outside of the Ben Franklin bridge to hop over the
Delaware River.
SEPTA, which covers Philadelphia PA and the surrounding
suburbs, has one of the more diverse transit systems around,
with Light Rail, Heavy Rail, trolleybuses, busses, and several different styles
of streetcars. They stopped using some of their trolley bus line several
years ago. :-( Streetcars come in three varieties, updated PCC cars,
and Kawasaki's with both poles (on most of the routes) and pantograph's (on routes
101 and 102). The Norristown Light Rail line is fairly unique in the sense
that it uses third rail for power, which is usually reserved for heavy rail systems.
SEPTA has two large transit centers: 30th Street which
handles mainly Commuter Trains and the Market St Subway Line (Amtrak is also co-located in the main station), and
the 69th Street Terminal, which handles light rail, heavy rail,
the route 101 and 102 Kawasaki Streetcars, and of course, busses - in three different staging
areas. In addition, there are the Norristown (R6 Commuter, Light Rail, and busses) and Frankford Transportation (just busses) Centers.
Although SEPTA has a fairly liberal photo policy, the SEPTA police will stop you and take your name and address info down if they even see you running around with a camera on their property - it
happened to me in the 69th Street terminal after photographing the Kawasaki's out on the street. At least they don't detain you for hours on end like METRA does!
As always, if you have something to contribute, please check my contact page.
If you have a particular question about transit or railfanning in the Philly area, there used to be several Yahoo groups for that purpose,
but now that Yahoo stopped supporting groups, many of them have migrated to "GroupsIO". I don't know those links, you will have to search them out on your own :-(
For your convenience, I have "screen-captured"
the important parts of the page in the two snapshots below. In addition, I
called the SEPTA police non-emergency number, and asked about the photo policy.
The fellow at the other end of the phone wasn't well versed in in, but did say
that you can be stopped. I was stopped at the 69th Street Terminal once
after shooting some pictures of the Norristown Light Rail cars, but all they
wanted to do was take down my name, address, yadda, yadda, yadda. The cops were
professional and not arrogant as some can get. (they actually kinda found it
humorous that someone would take a day off from work to waste their time taking
pictures of stuff they see everyday :-), so taking photos on SEPTA property
shouldn't be a problem unless you're trying to do something outside the norm!
The officer that answered the phone
did say that it was probably a good idea to call the last phone number listed
(215-580-7842), just to stay ahead of the game, and then you can show any
officer that you have already been in touch with them on taking pictures.
This was also confirmed by a call to
the 580-7842 number on the last day of FEB2011, and the woman I spoke with said
even if you are taking pictures for yourself, it's a good idea to call them at
this number and let them know where you will be on their property, and on what
date(s). This way, they can send over an email to the police guys, and
when the local cops grab you for taking pictures, they will call into HQ, and
you will already be on record as to who you are and what your intentions are.
It may seem like a lot of trouble, but it could also keep you OUT of trouble!
PLEASE NOTE:
If you plan on taking pictures at the 30th Street station, even on the SEPTA
platforms, it is AMTRAK property, so you should let them know you are there and
what you are doing - the last time I was there, 2015, there wasn't any problem,
in fact, one of the Amtrak police dudes (with a machine gun no less), showed us
where other interesting and historical things were in the station.
Disclaimers:
New format 10/26/23: Please check out my disclaimer page for my standard
dribble and contact info here
Main Map
