Downed catenary wires caused massive headaches along the Media and Sharon Hill trolley lines during the evening peak hours tonight. The wires went down along Springfield Rd near the Clifton-Aldan Rail Station in Clifton Heights at around 4:00pm, causing traffic tie-ups in the Clifton Heights-Aldan area. As a result, all 101 Woodland Av short turns were cancelled, with SEPTA running all 101 cars local to Media. On the 102 Sharon Hill line, all North St short turns were cancelled with local service to Baltimore Pike, where shuttle buses made the rest of the trip to Aldan, Collingdale, and Sharon Hill.

Also causing headaches tonight was an incident on the El between 5 St and 15 St stations, causing shuttle buses to operate between the two stations. Because of the incident, El service throughout the line, particularly west of 15 St was severely impacted as very few El trains were observed arriving at 69 St Terminal during the 5:00pm hour when passengers literally crowd the platforms. Several 65 buses left for Germantown with much smaller loads than usual. There is no word on what caused the service disruptions on the El this evening.

SEPTA staged an emergency drill at the Chinatown station on the Ridge Av Spur line yesterday. Philadelphia Police and Fire personnel joined SEPTA in participating in a mock chemical weapons attack. During the drill, two members of the Philadelphia Fire Department suffered heat stroke and were taken to area hospitals, according to KYW-3. A United Press International story also had this interesting tidbit:

A transit police officer learned a lesson of another kind during the drill. The publication says that had it been a real gas attack he would have entered the "control area" too quickly to try to render assistance. An organizer of the drill walked up to him and said: "You're dead."

Nice to know that my fare dollars are going towards top of the line training of our transit police officers...

On a related note, FOX 29 reported last night that the union representing the SEPTA Transit Police officers staged a silent protest related to their forthcoming contract negotiations.