Philadelphia—
Route 6—The Fight to
Preserve a Suburban Service
4 Line by Line: A chart illustrating the fate of each Philadelphia
trolley line. © 2000 by The Composing Stack Inc. Not responsible for typographical
errors. The Third Rail and The Third Rail
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When National City Lines Came to
Town Page 4 
Survivor. Four subway-surface
lines used this new portal to reach the extended trolley subway udner
Market Street. This entrance has since been upgraded (at City expense) to
a transit loop. Paul Matus photo
The most
bitter fight between the PTC and the public over a trolley to bus
conversion was Route 6. Originally scheduled to be converted from end to
end on October 28, 1956, the intra-Philadelphia end remained a rain line
for decades longer. The line had extensive sections of private
right-of-way north of the city limits separated by only about 3 miles of
street running from the Olney Station of the Broad Street Subway. The only
on-line substation was located at about the mid point, a mile outside the
city.
Route 6 in the mid 50s was the
heaviest of the pure rapid transit feeder routes and as owner and lessor
of the Broad Street Subway the City of Philadelphia protested the
conversion. In an attempt to avoid interference with the City, PTC hastily
changed plans and decided to retain trolley service on the city end but to
substitute buses on the suburban end. The City remained as a
protestant.
Despite this and the protests
of numerous civic groups the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission
eventually granted permission to convert the outer end as of October,
1957. The City continued to fight, pointing out that a long section of
Edge Hill Road (more than 4 miles beyond the city limits) was only 16 feet
wide and unsafe for two 8 foot wide buses to pass. Since the PUC had
ruled, the appeal was directed to the courts and a super [unclear] was granted. The PUC order could
not be acted upon (i.e. the line could not be converted) until the narrow
section of Edge Hill Road was widened to 20 feet. Over the winter of
1957-58 Pennsylvania Department of Highways constructed new strips along
the road to add the necessary width. By spring the City and other
opponents had exhausted all legal means of further delaying the PUC order
and on June 8, 1958, the axe fell. By nightfall the Willow Grove terminal
had no wire and was inoperable. All day express bus service (including
Saturdays) was operated in an effort to maintain passenger traffic but
patronage plummeted. For years the trolley offered a base day service of
approximately 15 minutes (PTC never tried too hard to operate symmetrical
schedules) but a few years after conversion he buses paralleling the old
trolley line were put on a 40 minute
headway.
Eventually the mid day and Saturday express service could no
longer be justified and off-peak passengers were forced to change vehicles at the city
limits. 
The
Broad Street Subway, owned by the City of Philadelphia, gathered
substantial business from the Route 6 line when it ran as a trolley
service all the way to Willow Grove. Here a freshly painted Broad Street
car, bearing the City's seal, operates into Fern Rock yard, just north of
the junction with Route 6. Irvin Matus
photo
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