Media/Elwyn rail commuters, meet Septa's Baldwin

Septa Train Schedules in REAL TIME

If you ride the Media/Elwyn line into the city, you’ll know two things.  1) Parking after 7:30am at the Media station can be non-existent  2) There isn’t any way to track Septa train schedules in real time.  For the former, if you ride a scooter/bike to the station, there is plenty of parking at any time of the day.  Now, riding in the cold or sometimes rain is not ideal, especially in a suit, but I’ve never not had parking.  As for the second item, well, I’m happy to report that Septa got with the times and recently released a website that is designed for smartphones.  In fact, it is excellent at providing train schedules and realtime updates on late arrivals/departures.  There are some minor improvements needed, but I like it a lot and is definetly worth a try.

Real time tracking on your smartphone.

The site/service goes by the name of Baldwin.  For those not familiar with the area’s history, Baldwin Locomotive was the gold standard in steam powered trains andhad a huge factory by the Delaware River in Delaware County.  The name is cool, and so is the service.  You can visit the site at http://baldwin.ph.  Access it with a smartphone and bookmark (it provides a nice icon on Iphones) to your home screen.  It will also save your setting too, so make sure you add your route before saving.

And don’t forget, Septa also provides a handy twitter feed for the Media/Elwyn Line, as well as the Media 101 Trolley Line.  I’ve found it useful on many occasions, especially during the snow season.