Market–Frankford Line
69th Street Transit Center to Frankford Transit Center · 27 stations · 41 min end to end
The Market–Frankford Line is the busiest thing on this network and the one most people mean by “the El”. It crosses the city east to west: elevated over Market Street through West Philadelphia, in tunnel through Center City, back into the air north of 2nd Street and elevated the rest of the way up to Frankford Transit Center. Trains come every 6 min in the weekday peak, the shortest gap anywhere on the system.
It serves 27 stations, not 28. The station inventories still list a twenty-eighth, 11th Street, and the route data still names its two platforms — but no train has a stop there, so it is not counted here as a station served.
The line in pictures
Every stop on the Market–Frankford Line
In running order, from 69th Street Transit Center to Frankford Transit Center. A ring marks a station where another line stops too — and there, the platforms are separate.
Stop on this lineEnd of the lineTransfer, different platform
69th Street Transit Center → Frankford Transit Center
27 stations · 13.16 mi (21.17 km) · 41 min end to end
How often trains run
Typical gap between trains in each part of the day, in the first direction of travel.
| Service | Day | Early morning before 7 am | Morning peak 7–9:30 am | Midday 9:30 am – 3:30 pm | Afternoon peak 3:30–6:30 pm | Evening 6:30–9 pm | Late night after 9 pm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market-Frankford Line All Stops | Monday to Friday | every 6 min | every 6 min | every 6 min | every 6 min | every 10 min | every 12.5 min |
| Market-Frankford Line All Stops | Saturday | every 16 min | every 10 min | every 10 min | every 10 min | every 12 min | every 15 min |
| Market-Frankford Line All Stops | Sunday | every 16 min | every 10 min | every 10 min | every 10 min | every 12 min | every 15 min |
| Market-Frankford Line All Stops | Holiday service | every 16 min | every 9 min | every 8 min | every 10 min | every 12 min | every 15 min |
First and last train
Departures from the end of the line. Times after midnight are marked, because this timetable runs past it — the last trains of the night leave after 2 am.
| Service | Day | Direction | First train | Last train | Trips |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market-Frankford Line All Stops | Monday to Friday | towards Frankford TC | 4:45 am | 12:11 am (next day) | 166 |
| Market-Frankford Line All Stops | Monday to Friday | towards 69th St TC | 4:36 am | 11:59 pm | 166 |
| Market-Frankford Line All Stops | Saturday | towards Frankford TC | 4:45 am | 12:11 am (next day) | 104 |
| Market-Frankford Line All Stops | Saturday | towards 69th St TC | 4:36 am | 11:59 pm | 103 |
| Market-Frankford Line All Stops | Sunday | towards Frankford TC | 4:45 am | 12:11 am (next day) | 104 |
| Market-Frankford Line All Stops | Sunday | towards 69th St TC | 4:36 am | 11:59 pm | 103 |
| Market-Frankford Line All Stops | Holiday service | towards Frankford TC | 4:45 am | 12:15 am (next day) | 111 |
| Market-Frankford Line All Stops | Holiday service | towards 69th St TC | 4:36 am | 11:59 pm | 110 |
Where you can change lines
Three places on this network have two lines under one name. In all three the platforms are separate.
| Station | Change to | Platforms | Walking time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15th St/City Hall | B | different platforms | not published |
| 69th Street Transit Center | M | different platforms | not published |
| 8th-Market | B | different platforms | not published |
The closed station
Between 13th Street and 8th-Market there is a platform no train stops at. 11th Street is still named in the route file, in both directions, and two separate station inventories still count it — but it has no entry in the stop table and no trip calls there.
That single fact is why the counts you will see for this line disagree: 27 stations served, 28 stations listed. This site publishes 27 and keeps the twenty-eighth on a page of its own, marked closed.
Stations on this line without full step-free access
| Station | What the data says |
|---|---|
| 34th Street | No step-free access |
| 15th St/City Hall | Step-free on some platforms only |
| Spring Garden | No step-free access |
Across the whole network 42 of the 70 stations are declared step-free, 23 are not and 5 have platforms declared differently from each other. The accessibility page has the full table and the lift and stair counts for the six biggest complexes.
Questions about the Market–Frankford Line
27, from 69th Street Transit Center to Frankford Transit Center. They are all listed above in running order, each one linked to its own page with first and last train and what is nearby.
41 min one way and 41 min the other, measured as the last arrival minus the first departure of a complete trip — not as a sum of the gaps between stations, which is where other guides lose minutes.
On a weekday the first train is at 4:45 am and the last leaves at 11:59 pm. The schedule page has all four kinds of day, including the two holidays that get a timetable of their own.
$2.90, the same on every line and whatever you pay with. Two of the four ways to pay also give you up to 2 free transfers within 2 hours; the other two do not. The fares page says which is which.
Because 11th Street is closed. Two independent station inventories still list it and the route file still names both of its platforms, but no trip stops there, so it is never counted as a station served.
These are the scheduled times, read from the published open data and recomputed every day. The service panel on the front page adds service notices on top of them.