Candis R. McLean
Cozy would be a filtered term to describe the atmosphere on trains, buses, and other modes of transportation that passengers had to adopt to complete their morning commute under the new SEPTA Regional Rail scheduling. When I stood on a crammed bus Friday morning, as passengers were tightly conjoined for a ride, other words to describe it came to the forefront of my mind. Minutes later, my bus driver searched for my face through a cluster of dejected passengers and he asked me about my commute, how it had changed, and when the trains were going to come back. In that moment, the exhausted driver of the a bus, whose traveler count had grown extensively, and his passengers all wanted the answer to the same question.
On July 1st of this year, SEPTA discovered an equipment defect in the Silverliner V trains that are used for several Regional Rail services. Internal cracks appeared in the stabilizer bars of 95% of the Silverliner V trains in SEPTA’s fleet. As a result, 120 trains were removed from usage as a preemptive security measure. SEPTA quickly devised a plan and developed a new scheduling system to transport the thousands of passengers that were abruptly effected by the downsizing. The transition was not seamless nor smooth, with many SEPTA users voicing their displeasure at train stations and on social media.
SEPTA’s General Manager, Jeffrey Knueppel, recently provided an update for the reintegration of several trains back into the SEPTA fleet and when passengers can expect for services to go back to normal.
“We sincerely regret the inconvenience to customers resulting from the recent rail car shortage. For our riders, September will be a transitional month. We expect it will be tougher at the start, but we see it becoming smoother toward the end of the month as more Silverliner Vs come back into service.”
Beginning on August 21st, SEPTA will commence a plan that will bring train cars back on a weekly basis. Ten cars will be added each week, and the hope is to have the fleet fully restored by November 6th. However, that date can be accelerated or pushed back depending on the reintegration process.
SEPTA will continue to lease rail cars from Amtrak, NJ Transit, and other sources while tinkering with the scheduling system to improve the quality and efficiency of commutes for all passengers. New schedules for some of the Regional Rail lines begin this week. November 6th may not be the answer many weary travelers were looking for, but at least it’s a tangible one. When the trains are restored, passengers can board with the security of knowing that the trains are safe and measures to avoid danger were taken.