Paoli/Thorndale SEPTA Line to Resume on Schedule Tuesday

SEPTA’s Paoli/Thorndale regional rail line (formerly the R5), suspended since Saturday afternoon because of Hurricane Irene, will resume operations with its first scheduled train around 5 a.m. Tuesday, a spokeswoman told Patch Monday afternoon.

The first Center City-bound train due at Ardmore station is scheduled for 5:44 a.m. The first westbound train is due at Ardmore at 6 a.m.

“It’s an Amtrak line that we operate, and we needed to wait for clearance from Amtrak to re-open Paoli/Thorndale for service,” said Heather Redfern, press officer for SEPTA. “They had to check for any sort of track damage or downed wires or downed trees. Once we are given that OK, then we were able to resume our service.”

Redfern did not say if Amtrak was finished doing that surveillance as of 5:30 Monday evening, but confirmed that SEPTA had its go-ahead to resume operations Tuesday.

The information is the same for other Amtrak lines on which SEPTA operates—the Cynwyd and Trenton, N.J. commuter lines.

“We had minimal damage throughout the system,” Redfern said of the commuter rail system as a whole.