SEPTA will soon add 24 coach cars to its Regional Rail fleet in an effort to avoid more service disruptions tied to ongoing repairs of its aging Silverliner IV rail cars.
SEPTA's board approved an $8.58 million bid to buy Bombardier Comet coach cars from Exo, the transit agency that serves the greater Montreal area. The purchase is being made with a portion of the $220 million in capital funds that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro allocated to SEPTA in November for safety upgrades and infrastructure improvements.
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"These additional rail cars will help us enhance reliability while we work toward replacing our aging Regional Rail fleet," SEPTA General Manager Scott Sauer said in a statement.
About two-thirds of SEPTA's Regional Rail fleet is made of of Silverliner IV rail cars that were built in the 1970s. The Federal Railroad Administration ordered SEPTA to complete inspections and repairs of the rail cars last year following an investigation into a series of electrical fires that found safety risks in the roof ducts and undercarriages of the Silverliner IVs.
In the fall, SEPTA pulled large portions of the fleet from service to complete inspections and repairs. Several Regional Rail lines were disrupted by canceled trips, delays and reduced capacity that lasted for months. Repairs were also stalled by a shortage of thermal wire needed for the installation of monitoring systems that detect overheating.
Repairs have now been completed on most of the Silverliner IVs, SEPTA officials said Wednesday, but the authority sought additional capacity as part of a transition plan to procure a new fleet over the coming decade.
Exo's Bombardier Comet coaches were built in the 1980s and modernized a little over a decade ago. SEPTA plans to operate the coaches using its ACS-64 locomotives that were put into service in 2018. The Silverliner IV cars are self-propelled using overhead catenary wires.
Provided Image/SEPTA
The interior of a Bombardier Comet coach is shown above.
SEPTA said it reached out to transit authorities across North America in recent months to inquire about available coach cars. Exo is in the process of replacing its Bombardier Comets with multilevel cars. Once SEPTA receives the coach cars, modifications will be made to doors and other systems to meet the authority's standards.
In December, SEPTA leased 10 rail cars from Maryland's public transit system MARC. They went into service at the end of January, boosting frequency on several lines.
SEPTA is still working out logistics for the Bombardier Comets to be sent to Philadelphia and did not say when they are expected to go into service.
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