The Great Philadelphia Station Hunt

   No, I don’t usually need a reason to go on a bike ride, but this little excursion was planned around a concert ticket purchase and the fact that I hate paying what the online brokers call a “convenience fee”. I don’t find dishing out an extra eight bucks very convenient, and I’m willing to make a trip down to the box office to save myself an extra hit to the wallet!

   Along with my visit to Franklin Music Hall, a stone’s throw from Franklin Square and his namesake bridge, I planned a route to find a few Philadelphia train stations. I’ve mentioned before on this blog my side hobby of “collecting” stations, brought about not only by interest in railroads but my love of architecture. Of course, the major structures like 30th Street Station or Grand Central in NYC are fantastic, but smaller depots also have their own charm, and I have photos of nearly 700 railroad stations that I have visited across the country.

   The Railroad Station Historical Society website is an invaluable resource to see what has been in the vicinity during my travels. The site is organized by state, and the Pennsylvania and New York sections are particularly helpful, as they are organized by county and include photos, addresses and a bit of history on the structures, as well! There were twenty-nine stations listed in Philadelphia, and I was missing six.

   Knowing that the circuit to reach the different destinations was going to be around fifty miles, I drove into Manayunk to eliminate an additional ride distance to and from the city. A good percentage of my ride was going to include bike lanes, and I started off down Ridge Road and then cut across Lehigh Avenue to the Glenwood section of Philadelphia. Just to the south of the intersection at Broad Street sits the Reading Railroad’s North Broad Station – the platforms are still in service in back, but the headhouse now serves as a homeless shelter.

   I headed up Broad Street then turned east on Glenwood Avenue, which eventually turns into Venango Street. At the northeast corner of its intersection with B Street is a former Pennsylvania Railroad freight house. It once was a boxcar transload facility, and the 50,000 square foot building is now Amtrak property.

   Ticket pick-up was my next stop, so I pedaled down B, turned right on Allegheny and left on 6th Street, eventually entering some of the neighborhoods I visited this winter on my City Cycling 4 ride. The Guided By Voices show I want to see is actually at Underground Arts, but use of the Franklin Music Center box office is shared during daytime hours.

   After the purchase, I continued down 6th, passing the Constitution Center and Independence Hall. My Historic Philadelphia rides, if nothing else, have really made me familiar with the surroundings, and I was picking out sites around Washington Square that I had visited previously. I made a right at Carpenter Street to reach a Philadelphia Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad freight station that has been nicely converted into a farmer’s market.

   Reversing direction via Washington Street, I made my way back across the city to reach Penn’s Landing and followed the Delaware River Trail north. The trail is in development above Market Street, so I was on and off segments near the Sugar House Casino, then I was back on the bike lane up Delaware Avenue and Richmond Street.

   The in-street trackage for Philadelphia’s light rail system was being installed in the Port Richmond neighborhood, so I briefly had to take to the sidewalk to get around all of the carnage. I made a right turn on Allegheny Avenue, where a wide and nicely-paved trail paralleled the streets through PhilaPort and the Tioga Marine Terminal. I wouldn’t say the trail was “scenic”, but there definitely was a lot to see, with a dock busy with truck traffic and container ship cranes, plus a few interesting industries along Delaware Avenue.

   I soon crossed Frankford Creek and passed beneath the Betsy Ross Bridge. Here I noticed the path really became a Rails-To-Trails project, as I was riding under the catenary towers that once carried the overhead wires powering the Pennsylvania Railroad’s electric freight engines as they brought trains to and from the Delaware River port area.

A pair of General Electric E44 locomotives pull a freight train in December 1968.

   Now in the Bridesburg section of the city, I made a left on Orthodox Street, and zigzagged over to Torresdale Avenue via Richmond and Bridge Streets. I had gone through my snacks in my jersey back pockets, and the wonderful smells coming from the variety of little restaurants in the Tacony neighborhood were making my stomach grumble. The road conditions were perfect here as the wide avenue had been recently repaved and had a nicely lined bike lane.

   Turning right on Rhawn Street, I spied Holmesburg Junction Station, which really looks like some passenger platforms around an interlocking tower. Splitting here from the Pennsylvania Railroad main line is the Bustleton Branch, now a lightly-used freight line, which runs up along the Pennypack Creek to service a few industries around Northeast Philadelphia Airport.

 

   I made a little detour to see the Frankford Avenue Bridge (also known as the Pennypack Creek Bridge, the Pennypack Bridge, the Holmesburg Bridge, and the King's Highway Bridge), which was erected in 1697 and is the oldest surviving roadway bridge in the United States.

   I was a little amused when my path down Ashburner Street was blocked by fire engine activity, but I found my way over to State Road and continued out along the railroad main line. There was a fairly new road-separated bike trail here, but with plenty of parallel roads, including I-95, for drivers to choose from, traffic was light, so I just stayed in the shoulder for the few miles up to Grant Avenue and Torresdale Station.

   On the return route, I cut back over to the better cycling conditions of Torresdale Avenue, and rode about three miles to a right turn at Tyson Avenue. I was now intersecting many busier roads in this northwesterly direction, and my legs were starting to feel the burn from the constant stops and accelerations at the traffic lights. In the back of my mind I knew that I still had a little climbing ahead of me.

   I was impressed to be in a bike lane most of the return route, and the pedal-friendly conditions continued down Rising Sun Avenue. Sue always says that she dislikes downhills, because the road always has to go back up, and after a brief coast down Adams Avenue, crossing Tacony Creek, I met a nasty little hill up Godfrey Avenue and a longer drag up Stenton Avenue.

   A left turn on Vernon Road led me to the highlight stop on this trip, the charming stone Stenton Station (man, is THAT alliterative!) in the east side of Mt. Airy.

   I swerved along Sprague Street onto Belfield Avenue to reach Johnson Street and pedaled a mile or so until it ended at Wissahickon Avenue. Just a few blocks to the left was the Rittenhouse Lane connection to the Wissahickon Trail. This route paralleled Lincoln Drive all the way down to Ridge Road, just a short sprint to my starting point on this ride.

   A few weeks ago, I purchased a Chesini (kay-SEE-nee) bicycle that someone had badged up as a Colnago Super – I don’t know why someone would do that to a very respectable brand, especially one with engravings that are an obvious giveaway to its true identity! However, I wasn’t complaining too much, because it allowed me to get a pretty good deal on the early-1980s Olimpiade model from one of my “connections” in the Netherlands.

   I can’t say I’m a big fan of the neon pink and black fade, but it is era-appropriate, and after I removed all of the decals and rubbed down the bike to clean off all of the adhesive residue, I turned to touching up some of the bad chipping areas. The enamel fluorescents are a little thin, so I had to apply a white base to the bare spots first, but the color ended up matching really well.

   The bike came with a mix of Campagnolo parts with some Shimano thrown in, so I going to go with the majority that is in place and focus on Campy Gran Sport and Nuovo Record parts. Those modern tires will go, as will the shabby saddle – unfortunate, because it WAS an excellent Selle Italia Turbo many, many years ago. I ordered some Chesini decals from VeloCals, and I’m going to take a crack at filling in the engraving with some contrasting color, too.

   After weeks of trying to find an affordable set of Record brakes for the Casati Fibre, I finally lucked out with a Campagnolo Centaur group that came to me “on the cheap”, with a mismatched pair of Record calipers included. The bike had otherwise been complete and hanging from my rafters, so I was able to put the final touches on it over the weekend.

   The seat post may appear a bit long in the photos, but I didn’t want to cut it down. I’d rather leave it to the new owner to make his own custom fit. I’ll sign off with the Casati pics:

Peaceful shifting...AT LAST!

   I had originally built my Vitus 922 with a complete set of Mavic components, which were hard to find and are becoming rarer and more expensive all the time. As I rode the bicycle more often, I found there were some changes and compromises to be made in order to achieve a better fit and improve the machine’s overall performance.

   The first change was obvious immediately, as I wanted a compact crankset to provide more “climbability”. I had installed modern FSA cranks for the short term, until I could find something more era-appropriate, which came in the form of a Sugino RT set.

   During this swap, I was happy to learn that I could adjust the cage length on Mavic 801 derailleur by sliding the pivot bolt within a slot in the cage plates (see yellow circled area in photo below). By lengthening the cage, I could increase the chain wrap capacity – in other words, take up the extra slack in the chain that occurs when changing between the compact crankset’s 50- and 34-tooth rings.

   I didn’t like the curve of the Mavic handlebars, as I couldn’t find a comfortable position for the brake levers in order to be able to ride from the hoods, yet have the proper reach to brake when in the drops. Here I went a little outside of the box, but because you can only see a bit of the handlebars with tape applied, I decided to cut a little weight and install some Kestrel carbon bars. The product choice was actually a bit old-school, as they were a pristine set from the early 2000s.  

   The major change to the Vitus’ setup was to come with the shifting. I had originally installed a set of Mavic 820 downtube shifters (photo below), but after a decade of the ease and safety of keeping my hands on the bars when changing gears, I decided to change things up – and my preference would be Campagnolo, of course.

   The first issue would be changing the Mavic 801 derailleur, which made me sad, because I loved the industrial look of that component. The 801 had a drop parallelogram design, which required a shorter amount of cable pull to shift cogs than modern brake/shift levers provide. I purchased a Mavic 845 derailleur of the more modern, slant parallelogram variety which more closely follows the profile of the cogs when changing gears. I thought that I was well on my way to fixing the situation.

   The next problem came from the set of Mavic Cosmos wheels, which I loved, but the set unfortunately had a Shimano freehub. This was no problem with the downtube friction shifters, as they would work with any brand of cassette, but Campagnolo and Shimano have different cog and spacing widths, so any change involving indexed shifting was going to be sketchy.

   After some research, I found that the Shimano 7-speed cassettes had similar shifting distances to the Campagnolo 8-speed, and theoretically an extra spacer and cog could be inserted to match up. It ended up being very close, but the shifting was noisy and occasionally slipped in the middle cogs. I substituted a set of Campagnolo wheels and the situation was a little better but not perfect.

   I took a trip to visit my pals at Bikesport for some brainstorming, and it was suggested that the culprit may be the cable pull compatibility. I recalled reading somewhere that the Mavic 845 rear derailleur would work with 8-speed systems, but I couldn’t remember that it specifically mentioned Campagnolo.

   Sure enough, after checking with some old Mavic technical manuals someone had posted online, only Dura-Ace indexed systems were named as compatible. I slipped the shift cable out of the rear derailleur and housing then took the righthand Dura-Ace lever that had been set aside for the Bottecchia 989 to conduct a shifting experiment. I inserted the cable into the shifter and housing then, without having to actually install the lever on the bars, went through the cogs without any problems.

   I was a bit disappointed to have to remove the more stylish Campagnolo shifters, but I was happy to be able to keep my Mavic wheels and, more importantly, the derailleurs. If the Dura-Ace shifters would not have worked, I would have had to consider changing to a complete Campagnolo group. It wouldn’t have been tragic, but I really wanted to maintain the overall “French-ness” of the bicycle.

   There hasn’t been a lot of mention of the Bottecchia 989 build since I bought the frame back in September, but that is mostly because it simply involved collecting parts...and I simply had a hard time finding reasonable prices for everything. The fact of the matter is, as time is going on vintage parts in good condition are getting harder to find, and the cost is reflecting that. It doesn’t help that eBay now has PA sales tax added on. An additional 6-8% is a big hit to my budget when buying $300 frameset and component groups!

   The Bottecchia is being listed at a number that is higher than I would normally prefer, but it is a pro team bike from the ‘90s – a rare find in such condition. I hope, with the appropriate top-end parts installed, it draws in some potential buyers.

   Just to provide a little update on the Masi Nuova Strada project, I have nearly all of the C-Record group ordered, and I’ve installed a few things as they’ve come in. I even threw a few desperate lowball bids at some delta brakes, but nothing stuck.

   I really want to keep the budget within reason, so my plan is now to go with the “Cobalto” brakes Campagnolo substituted when the first-generation deltas were found to be less-than-perfect mechanically. The Cobalto brakes are essentially Super Record with blue script and a blue jewel on the caliper pivot bolt. The color will match up nicely with the frame, and, more importantly, the alternative brakes will cost about 1/3 of the deltas!

   Collection of the needed parts for my Eddy Merckx Hitachi team bicycle is going well, with the expected difficulty being the search for a set of Delta brakes at a reasonable price. My goal is to have the bike ready for the Cycle Tech Turkey Trek in a few weeks.

   All readers are invited to this social ride (relaxed pace) that will start at the Schuylkill River Trail’s Betzwood Park Trailhead, near King of Prussia. We’ll ride into Philadelphia and back, around a 44-mile round trip.

T.G.I.F. - it's not what you think!

   No, not “Thank God It’s Friday”, I’m going for “Train Geeks Invasion...” or “Terrible Gusts Included...” when I took my bike for a ride in Amish Country last week. My main destination was the Strasburg Railroad in order to view No. 611, a historic Norfolk and Western class J streamlined steam engine, which was making a guest appearance to run some excursion trains. The huge 4-8-4 locomotive, built in 1950, once pulled the railroad’s premier passenger trains, such as the Powhatan Arrow, which ran from Norfolk, Virginia, to Cincinnati, Ohio. Amazingly the locomotive only worked for nine years, as railroads started using diesel-powered engines, and most steamers eventually faced the scrapper’s torch. Thankfully, this stylish loco was safely stored at the Virginia Museum of Transportation until recent efforts brought it back to working condition.

   The crew is operating No. 611 in a reunion event with Strasburg’s No. 475, which is also a former N&W locomotive. The train rides, special nighttime photo sessions and other festivities are serving as a fundraiser for maintenance of 611 and for updating its controls so that they are compatible with modern railroad detection/operation systems.

   I left my car at a park just west of the center of town, and rode my bike along Main Street towards the railroad grounds. My family and I have visited the excellent Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, directly across the street, many times, but because we had our fill of tourist train rides all over the country and in Europe, we seldom stopped at the Strasburg Railroad. It is a really wonderful experience visiting the grounds and seeing/smelling the live operation of steam locomotives, and the rolling farmlands of Lancaster County provide attractive scenery for a ride in vintage passenger cars.

   A side aspect of the Strasburg Railroad of which few people are aware is their extensive mechanical department that not only oversees maintenance and repairs to their own equipment, but also restores historic rail equipment and fabricates parts that would no longer be available to keep the old locomotives and cars running on the rails. For over fifty years, the team at Strasburg has been performing world-class work in the steam railroading industry. 

   Regular excursions are an out-and-back affair on the same tracks without the ability to turn the locomotives at each end, and really, that would be quite a time-consuming operation for a relatively short journey. The locomotives run backwards to the east for 4.5 miles then run around the passenger cars on an adjacent track to couple back onto the train and pull it, facing forward, for the return trip. Obviously, the run back to Strasburg was the desirable direction for the many photographers who were out to record the event, and I had timed my visit well to see No. 611 leading its train across the countryside.

   We have been having an incredibly warm September, but autumn really felt like it was setting in this day, as not only were the temperatures seasonably cool, but the leaves were being stirred up in blustery winds coming out of the north. I headed away from the rails in the right direction, being able to ride with the wind as I started the long, steep climb up Keneagy Hill Road over Mine Ridge.

   After grinding my way over the top, I was sheltered a bit by the hill and trees as I turned east on Georgetown Road. I eventually hooked up with Mine Road, which ran parallel to its namesake ridge to the town of Gap. The appropriately-named town is where the Pennsylvania Railroad cut through the hills into the flatter Lancaster farmlands, and I connected with Route 741 alongside the wide right-of-way that had at one time consisted of four parallel tracks busy with freight and passenger trains but now has just two tracks served by the occasional Amtrak train.

   Coming through Gap, the road looped back in nearly a 180-degree turn, heading west now along the north side of Mine Ridge. The railroad may have had an easier time out in this countryside, but streets in this area are anything but flat, and I was dreading the fight against the howling wind when I would eventually have to turn north.

   I did not like Hoover/Hensel Road at all! After a brief descent into a bowl-like depression, the pavement went practically straight up, made only worse by the railroad overpass at the top. In hindsight, it seemed an underpass would have been a simple engineering alternative.

   The intersection with busy Lincoln highway didn’t improve the opinion about my route choice here, particularly since there was no traffic light. Although it was picturesque, I wasn’t too excited by the next long grind ahead that curved up around a farm set atop a knoll.

   I can’t say I was happy to be smacked in the face by a tremendous gust as I came around the hill, but it was better than being broadsided, since I probably would have been blown off of the road. In fact, the wind was so strong that, as I slowed for a stop sign on the steep drop to Amish Road, I laughed to realize that I hadn’t even squeezed my brakes!

   The left turn, out of the full force of the wind, onto Route 772 (Newport Road) would have been more welcome if there was any shoulder of which to speak. Being buzzed by several tractor trailers made for a very nervous ride, and I couldn’t have been much happier to turn left onto Osceola Mill Road. The wind was now off of my right shoulder, and I was moving along nicely down Harvest and Irishtown Roads into the town of Ronks.

   Many of the major roads had a noticeable depression near the righthand white stripe, caused by years of wear from horse-drawn buggies. Some repaving had been done here on Ronks Road, and where the newer asphalt met this depression, a hard-edged groove had been formed. It was difficult enough to hold my line with the wind, but negotiating a safe area to ride between the edge of the road, busy traffic and this nasty pavement groove became nearly impossible at times. I caught my front wheel badly once and yanked up hard on the bars to jump out of a possible spill! 

   I pedaled along Cherry Road and across busy Route 896 to reach Leaman Road, which was a tremendously enjoyable section of my route. The wind was at my back following the long, sweeping curves of the road that went slightly downhill towards the watershed of Pequea Creek. A couple of Amish children waved at me during recess from their one-room schoolhouse.

   From here it was only a couple of miles down Strasburg Pike back to my car, but it seemed this could have been another situation negotiating traffic with only a narrow shoulder. I must have just lucked out with my timing, and maybe somewhat the speed I was going with the wind, because there was plenty of traffic heading the other direction, but I was only passed by a couple cars along the way.

   I had been doing many longer rides of the 50- to 60-mile variety recently and had decided this day to “back off a bit” with something in the 30-mile range, but it was amazing what hills and wind can do to ruin that plan!