The Airport Line (formerly the R1 Airport) is a route of the

SEPTA Regional Rail The SEPTA Regional Rail system is a commuter rail network owned by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority and serving the Philadelphia Metropolitan area. The system has 13 branches and more than 150 active stations in Philadelp ...

commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting Commuting, commuters to a Downtown, central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter r ...

system in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, which officially runs between Philadelphia International Airport through Center City to

Temple University station Temple University station is an above-ground SEPTA Regional Rail station located at the eastern edge of the Temple University campus at 915 West Berks Street between 9th and 10th Streets, in the Cecil B. Moore section of Lower North Philadelphia ...

. In practice, however, only a few trains originate or terminate at Temple; most are through routed with lines to the north after leaving the

Center City Commuter Connection 250px, The ASCE plaque in Jefferson Station 250px, City plaque in Jefferson Station The Center City Commuter Connection, (CCCC) commonly referred to as "the commuter tunnel", is a passenger railroad tunnel in Center City, Philadelphia, Penns ...

. Half of weekday trains are through routed with the

Warminster Line The Warminster Line is a route of the SEPTA Regional Rail commuter rail system. It serves stations between its namesake town, Warminster, and Center City, Philadelphia. Half of the route is shared by other lines, including the Lansdale/Doylesto ...

, with the other half of weekday trains through routed with the

Fox Chase Line The Fox Chase Line SEPTA Regional Rail service connecting Center City Philadelphia with Fox Chase. It uses the Fox Chase Branch, which branches off from the SEPTA Main Line at Newtown Junction north of the Wayne Junction station. It runs entirel ...

. All weekend and holiday trains are through routed with the Warminster Line and terminate either in Warminster or Glenside. The line between Center City and the airport runs seven days a week from 5:00 am to midnight with trains every 30 minutes on weekdays and every hour on weekends and holidays. The trip length from Suburban Station to the airport is 19 to 24 minutes. The line is fully grade-separated in the normal service, but one public grade crossing between Temple University and Glenside is present at Rices Mill Road in Glenside.

Route

While geographically on the former Pennsylvania Railroad side of the Regional Rail System, the route consists of new construction, a reconstructed industrial branch of the former Pennsylvania Railroad, and a shared Conrail (formerly Reading Company) freight branch. The Airport Line opened on April 28, 1985, as SEPTA R1, providing service from Center City to Philadelphia International Airport. By its twentieth anniversary in 2005, the line had carried over 20 million passengers to and from the airport. The line splits from

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada ...

's Northeast Corridor north of Darby and passes over it via a

flying junction A flying junction or flyover is a railway junction at which one or more diverging or converging tracks in a multiple-track route cross other tracks on the route by bridge to avoid conflict with other train movements. A more technical term is " g ...

. West of the airport, the line breaks from the old right-of-way and a new bridge carries it over

I-95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canadia ...

and into the airport terminals between the baggage claim (arrivals) and the check-in counters (departures). The line stops at four stations which are directly connected to each airport terminal by escalators and elevators which rise one level to the walkways between the arrival and departure areas. All airport stations feature

high-level platform Railway platform height is the built height – ''above top of rail (ATR)'' – of passenger platforms at stations. A connected term is ''train floor height'', which refers to the ATR height of the floor of rail vehicles. Worldwide, there are m ...

s to make it easier to board and alight from the train with luggage. Some stations can be accessed directly from the arrivals concourse by crossing Commercial Vehicles Road. The line ends between Terminals E and F at their combined station. , most weekday Airport Line trains are through routed with the

and the

and alternate between terminating in Warminster and Fox Chase respectively. Most weekend trains are through routed with the Warminster Line and alternate between terminating in Glenside and Warminster.

Stations

The Airport Line makes the following station stops, after leaving the

History

The line south of the Northeast Corridor was originally part of the

Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B) was an American railroad that operated independently from 1836 to 1881. It was formed in 1836 by the merger of four state-chartered railroads in three Middle Atlantic states to create a ...

main line, opened on January 17, 1838. The connection between the NEC and the original PW&B is made however by the later

60th Street Branch The 60th Street Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad was a branch line from South 58th Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Hog Island, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1918 by the Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad The Philadelphia, ...

. A new alignment of the PW&B (now the NEC) opened November 18, 1872, and on July 1, 1873, the

Philadelphia and Reading Railway The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and commercial rail transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states that operated from 1924 until its 1976 acquisition by Conrail. Commonly called ...

, later the Reading Company, leased the old line for 999 years. Connection was made over the PRR's Junction Railroad and later the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Baltimore and Philadelphia Railroad. However, as a condition of the sale, no passenger service was provided. The line passed into Conrail in 1976 and SEPTA in 1983, with passenger service to the Philadelphia International Airport beginning on April 28, 1985. Infill stations were planned from the beginning of service, two of which were on the Airport Line proper: one at 70th Street, the other one at 84th Street. The latter station was opened in 1997 as Eastwick, while 70th Street was never built, and has since disappeared from maps. Additionally, University City station (proposed as "Civic Center", now Penn Medicine station) opened in April 1995 to serve all R1, R2 and R3 trains passing it. All these stations appeared on 1984 SEPTA informational maps, the first ones to show the Center City Commuter Connection and the Airport Line. SEPTA activated

positive train control Positive train control (PTC) is a family of automatic train protection systems deployed in the United States. Most of the United States' national rail network mileage has a form of PTC. These systems are generally designed to check that trains a ...

on the Airport Line on October 10, 2016.

Ridership

Between FY 2008-FY 2019 annual ridership on the Airport Line peaked at 2,457,743 during FY 2015, but fell to 1,518,250 by FY 2019.

Notes

References

External links

Airport Line
, SEPTA {{authority control SEPTA Regional Rail Airport rail links in the United States Reading Company lines Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad lines Railway lines opened in 1985 Philadelphia International Airport 1985 establishments in Pennsylvania