R5 (SEPTA)

The SEPTA R5 is a route of the SEPTA Regional Rail (commuter rail) system. One end of the route serves the western suburbs of Philadelphia, USA, and the other the northern suburbs. The route extends from Thorndale, Pennsylvania in Chester County to Doylestown, Pennsylvania in Bucks County. The line utilizes both former Penn Central trackage, which is now owned by PennDOT and operated by Amtrak under contract, and former Reading Railroad trackage, now owned by SEPTA. It is also the longest by distance of the current seven routes of the Regional Rail network.

As of 2005, most trains continue through Center City, although some from either end terminated at Suburban Station.

R5 Paoli-Thorndale

This branch utilizes one of the oldest sections of what is now Amtrak's Keystone Corridor, an electrified 104-mile two to four-track high-speed route between Harrisburg Transportation Center in Harrisburg and 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. The line was originally part of Pennsylvania's "Main Line of Public Works", a series of canals and railroads to connect Philadelphia with Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and points west. The tracks subsequently became part of the Main Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad before eventually becoming Amtrak's Keystone Corridor. The "Main Line" also refers to the affluent Philadelphia suburbs along the line of the same name.

Prior to the late-1980s, all commuter rail operations went from 30th Street Station to Paoli, the westernmost census designated place along the Main Line. Because of this earlier operation, local residents called the R5 the "Paoli Local". Currently, all Paoli turn-around trains, which operate alternately on Saturdays and exclusively on Sundays, now use the nearby Malvern train station as its last stop (the Paoli train yard was closed down in the mid-1990s and is in the process of being converted into extra parking, and eventually, a new Paoli train station), and uses the Frazer train yard as a turn-around location. Prior to 1992, the service went as far west as Parkesburg, but service was truncated to Downingtown because Amtrak lacked facilities to turn SEPTA trains around, and trains were forced to "deadhead" (travel without passengers) all the way out to Lancaster.

Electrified service between Philadelphia and Paoli was opened on September 11 1915. As the first of the local commuter and long-distance line to be electrified, the line was used as an "experiment" for powering trains using AC overhead catenary wires. The previous commuter line to be electrified was the Long Island Rail Road in New York City, but this line utilized the DC third rail similar in nature to the New York subway system and most other heavy-rail interurbans. Between 1915 and the 1960s, the former Pennsylvania Railroad used the MP-54 electric multiple-unit (EMU) railcars, which were brick red ("Tuscan Red") in color (green in the Penn Central era) and had characteristic "owl eye" round windows at car ends.

The MP-54s were replaced in the 1960s and 1970s with the Silverliner EMU cars, which are still in use today. More recently, SEPTA acquired push-pull coaches from the Bombardier corporation, and is hauled by AEM-7 electric locomotives similar to those used by Amtrak and New Jersey Transit. As a part of the Keystone Corridor upgrade projects conducted by Amtrak and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the entire segment of the R5 line between Philadelphia and Paoli will have new concrete ties, continuous welded rails, and overhead lines and substations, allowing SEPTA and Amtrak to run multiple trains at the same time in the same manner as that found on the Northeast Corridor.

List of stations:

Ridership on the Lansdale/Doylestown line has increased 28% from 1995 to 2005. From SEPTA Annual Service Plans: