After 120 of Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority's new but faulty Silverliner V cars were grounded in early July, regional rail service was drastically reduced. Repaired cars will begin returning to service this month.
[Headline updated 08/09/2016 to reflect the correct timeline for the Silverliner V repairs.]
"SEPTA should return to a regular Regional Rail schedule again by October, the authority's general manager said in a press conference Wednesday," report Jason Laughlin & Emily Babay for The Inquirer's In Transit blog.
The rail authority will begin replacing defective parts on 120 Silverliner V rail cars, about a third of its fleet, at the end of this month and and plans to return 10 cars to service every week until November 12, said Jeff Knueppel, SEPTA's general manager.
SEPTA expects to have at least 40 rail cars leased from other agencies, though, which should allow it to return to a regular schedule in about two months, before all the Silverliner V cars are repaired.
"All trains are operating on Interim Weekday Schedules until further notice," according to SEPTA.
"The Silverliner Vs are the newest trains in SEPTA's Regional Fleet—going into service between 2011 and 2013," notes a July 6 post.
The 120 cars were almost all found to have cracks in equalizer beams, a part that transfers the weight of the car to the axles. The cracks could have posed a significant safety hazard if they hadn't been discovered by a SEPTA inspector.
Nearly identical Silverliner Vs, manufactured in South Korea by Hyundai Rotem and assembled in Philadelphia, are in use in Denver's new A and B lines with no problems, as an earlier post indicates.
Hyundai Rotem will cover the cost of the parts and repairs, add Laughlin and Babay. "It remains an open question how — or if — Hyundai Rotem will cover the indirect costs of the vehicle failures," which include loss of ridership and passenger car leasing costs of up to $1 million per month.
Hat tip to AASHTO Daily Transportation Update.
FULL STORY: SEPTA to phase in return of Silverliner V cars through November
Denver's Commuter Rail Cars: Same as SEPTA's But Without the Defects
Denver's transit agency is running very similar Hyundai Rotem EMUs on their new A Line to the airport. The car shells are imported from South Korea and assembled in the same Philadelphia plant as SEPTA's problem-plagued Silverliner V cars.
SEPTA Trains Running on Schedule for the First Time in Two Months
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority returned to a normal commute schedule today, after making sufficient repairs to new trains that didn't start on the right track.
SEPTA Forced to Take 120 Regional Trains Out of Service for Repairs
SEPTA commuters traveling to and from Delaware will spend the summer in transit gridlock, as 120 trains undergo necessary repairs to a serious structural flaw.
The state-sanctioned urbicide of Austin
People don’t kill cities. Freeways do.
US to reduce Colorado River water deliveries to Mexico
A new Colorado Treaty amendment reduces Mexico’s Colorado River water allocation by 250,000 acre feet.
New Jersey’s second-largest city bans standalone data centers
Jersey City will continue to allow co-location facilities, such as those meant for research institutions that store their own data.
Amtrak not solely to blame for New Jersey commuter rail's unreliability, report finds
A new study from the Garden State Initiative found that NJ Transit’s budget grew 20% across a 4 year period, but reliability declined significantly over the same period.
EPA erases limits on planet-warming pollution from power plants
Under Monday’s plan, power plants would still have some limits on how much mercury, arsenic and other contaminants they can emit.
Phoenix announces new on-demand transit service, more frequent RAPID buses
Both new services will launch in October, and are part of Phoenix's Project Effective Access Solutions for Easing Congestion.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
Eagle County Government
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Nashville Planning Department
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello
Journal of the American Planning Association