This update is for all OTOL members. Those participants who were involved in the Fest have received several e-mails from me with photos taken by those who were at the Fest, and other pertinent information.

Quiz Answers

The quiz for the Fest was posted online on January 19th, the day after the Fest was over. One week and a half later, I have now put the quiz answers up on my site.

Be aware that even the best of us make mistakes. The response to Question #4 about how many rail platforms there are at Philadelphia International Airport was wrong in the print version of the quiz answers given in person to participants. The correct answer is 7, not 6. The reason is that while there is a continuous platform serving the Terminal A and Terminal B stops on the departures side, we found that each station has its own separate platform on the arrivals side. It was assumed that there was a continuous platform on the arrivals side too, hence the incorrect answer.

Fest By The Numbers

Of our 20 people on the guest list:
[*]One, Bill Magee, could not participate in the Fest itself due to illness. He remained on the list on an honorary status because he pre-purchased TransPasses for the group and saved us collectively a bundle of money.
[*]We had two Johns, and three Davids.
[*]There were eight participants who live in Pennsylvania. New Jersey came in second place with five. There were three people from Midwestern states (Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana), two from New York State, one from Delaware, and one from Idaho.
[*]We had three people whose last names begin with a "W", three with an "S", and three with a "K".

[*]Two participants were under the age of 12.
[*]Our largest group traveling together was right at the beginning, in Parts A1, A2, and A3. That was the R2 to Sharon Hill, the 102 trolley to 69th Street, and the Market-Frankford Line to Frankford. There were a total of 16 people on each of these segments. While we have had Fest counts of 20 or more, I don't think we have ever had more than 12 together at any one time during our contemporary era of Fests over the past three years.
[*]Part A4 would have been even larger, as a total of 17 people associated with the Fest rode the Market-Frankford Line from Frankford to 11th Street. That is where John Wireman joined the Fest. Problem was, when he got there, 13 of us had already left Frankford on an earlier train. Nick, Owen, and Isak had chosen to stay behind and ended up riding the intended train with John, so that sub-Fest had the other 4 people.
[*]17 people turned to 14 as David Morrison, and the two Sindlers left the group at lunchtime.
[*] Parts A5 and A6, which was our round trip over two different routes to and from Chestnut Hill, had 14 people outbound, and we gained a 15th when Ted Patchell joined us on the R7 train at Wyndmoor. We maintained the same 15 people through Parts A7 and A8, which was our round trip to Overbrook on the R5 train and returning on the #10 trolley.
[*]The #10 trolley's arrival at 30th Street Station is where our group had its biggest fragmentation. We basically split in half. Eight people stayed on, and seven got off and walked to 30th Street Station. Of the 8 who remained on board, three went to South Street for Cheese Steaks, one went to check-in to his hotel, three went home, and one stayed aboard by mistake and eventually went home too. Of the seven who went into 30th Street Station, two caught other transportation home, while the other five remained for dinner.
[*]Parts A9 and A10, our after-dark round trip to the Airport, was our smallest official group at just 5 people.
[*]Sunday was just as successful, another pleasant surprise for me. Traditionally, on our multi-day weekend Fests, Sundays usually have fewer people than we get on Saturdays. Well we never had fewer than 11 together at any one time. It was eleven people on Parts B1 and B2, our round trip to West Trenton, NJ, and the same group that had to hustle at Jenkintown to make the R5 train. Two more (Nick and John W.) joined us at Jenkintown, making Parts B3 and B4 (our R5 round trip to Doylestown) the peak of Sunday's participation at 13. The same 13 did Part B5 on the R2 up to Warminster. Then Todd, who lives there, left the group. He really did complete the cycle, having taken the inbound R2 in the morning to meet up with us. So our final trip inbound to Center City, Part B6, was a dozen people.

The report

Very slowly I am working on the report. Much of the data I collected from members last weekend via separate e-mails, which I used to determine the statistics above, will be good information for the report.

In the same vein as Kevin’s Quiz, “several” years ago in freshman math at Villanova my professor posed a mathematical series problem on an exam. A mathematical series problem is a set of numbers with one or more numbers missing. The solution is to find the equation or pattern that describes the given numbers and then use that knowledge to fill in the blank or blanks. For example, the missing number in the series 2, 4, 6, X, 10 is, obviously, 8. A good mathematical series problem uses a much less obvious pattern. In this case, the series problem was:

46, 52, 56, 60, 63, ??, 69. Find the missing entry.

Answer confirmed tomorrow. I am proud to say, I was the only one in the class to correctly solve this problem.

66?

It was several years ago when Bill left the PhillyFest 2001 group at Villanova. Now we know where he was headed!

Millbourne!

HaRRy is exactly right! The answer is: MILLBOURNE!!!

46, 52, 56, 60, 63, ??, 69. The seemingly obvious mathematical answer is Ellis’ choice of 66. It was the overwhelming choice back in 1965 as well. Good choice, but wrong. My math professor back then had both a wry sense of humor and knowledge of local rail transit.

The series is, from east to west, the above ground stops on the Market Street Subway Elevated (SEPTA Market-Frankford Line).

46th Street, 52nd Street, 56th Street, 60th Street, 63rd Street, Millbourne, 69th Street.

In returning the exams, he asked me to stand (a 17 year old college freshman who looked more like 12). “Mr. Magee,” he said, “As the only student to correctly solve the series problem, I’ll give you the honor of telling the class the answer.” When I said “Millbourne, sir.” half the class groaned (the half from the Philadelphia area) and half the class simply looked blank (the resident students from elsewhere). “And exactly what is that series, Mr. Magee?” he asked. “Stops on the Market Street El, sir.” Now, everyone (except me) groaned.

Mr. Goulet (my professor was a cousin of singer Robert Goulet) and I had a good laugh. He excluded that problem from the marks for the class, but awarded me 5 extra credit points for imagination and subway-elevated knowledge. Nearly 40 years later, I still remember that day.

I've only ridden the Market St El once in the past 25 or so years (to downtown and a ball game at the Vet), but from nearly daily riding in the 50's and early 60's that numeric "series" is burned into my brain.

And I can very well understand your remembering that incident in your Math class.

BTW, I've forgotten the reason why the Millbourne area of Upper Darby doesn't have number streets -- the numbers stop at 63rd then resume only once: 69th. But I do recall reading that there was (something like 80-100 years ago) a rational reason for that.

OBTW, Bill -- in case you didn't know -- I grew up in Upper Darby, from age 4 in 1945 till I left for the Navy in the early 60's.

I neglected to include in this update a link to my official guest count for each segment of the Fest. I first listed the participants in alphabetical order, assigning each a number. Then I listed each segment of the Fest, and which people (by number) were in attendance.

And that is the last hint anyone gets about the Fest report, which at the rate I am going, will be done by the end of 2004.

No doubt connecting to or from the Media trolley......



This passage from nycsubway.org's Philadelphia page about the Media & Sharon Hill trolleys might hopefully explain this:

The Philadelphia city line is located at Cobbs Creek just west of the 63rd Street stop. For the next half mile or so, the El leaves Market Street and the aerial structure, and routes to the north at grade through the tiny borough of Millbourne (population 943, area less than 0.1 square mile). The El station is located at Millbourne Avenue. The El leaves Millbourne and reaches the final stop at 69th Street in Upper Darby Township (not to be confused with either Darby Borough or Darby Township, both also in Delaware County, PA).

Millbourne, dwarfed on all sides by Philadelphia and Upper Darby, has always been pretty protective of its name and its independence as a separate municipality. Their insistence that the one and only El stop in their town not be named after a fictitious continuation of Philadelphia street naming patterns is not surprising. 69th Street, Upper Darby, is, by distance along Market Street, at exactly the correct location.

For those of us who grew up in Philadelphia in the 50’s, 69th Street is best known for being the location of (uncle) Mort Farr’s appliance store (a prodigious local advertiser in those early TV days). Today kids know 69th Street as the location of the Tower Theater, an especially good spectator venue for many mid-level act rock concerts.

The Tower is also famous, of course, as the site of Upper Darby High School Class of 1959 graduation, all 509 of us...

I had forgotten that Millbourne is actually a separate borough.

Alas the last time I was at Millbourne El station, I witnessesed a purse snatching. A kid appeared to be getting on a train, but quickly snatched a purse, jump off as the doors were closing, and ran down the tracks behind the train toward the wooded area west of the station. Some people held the doors to keep the train from leaving, but there was nothing we could do -- the woman got off and we proceeded on toward the city. All this was in the mid-80's I should note. I hope there is less crime there now.

"The series is, from east to west, the above ground stops on the Market Street Subway Elevated (SEPTA Market-Frankford Line).

46th Street, 52nd Street, 56th Street, 60th Street, 63rd Street, Millbourne, 69th Street."

My high school math teacher gave us a similar series:

14, 23, 28, 33, 42, 51, 59, 67, 77, 86 - stops on the Lexington Ave. local

Guest count has been updated. I was informed today that there were six, not five, of us on the Airport round trip Saturday evening. John Wireman was added to the list for that segment.