July 11, 2016
SEPTA officials on Monday afternoon said 13 leased railcars and three locomotives helped to smoothe the morning rush on its Regional Rail lines.
Another five passenger trains will be available this week, as well.
The transit agency unveiled a new schedule on Sunday for the work week intended to help ease the commute for Regional Rail riders following the removal of 130 passenger trains from service. SEPTA has put into service eight passengers cars and a locomotive from New Jersey Transit, as well as five railcars and two locomotives from Amtrak.
SEPTA General Manager Jeff Knueppel said there were 574 trains operating on the Regional Rail lines for the morning commute, 25 more trains than last week. That's still a significant drop from the 788 trains running daily before cracks were discovered in the suspension systems of 95 percent of the relatively-new Silverliner V trains. Those trains were immediately taken off line until they can be repaired.
With the additional leased cars, SEPTA was able to offer longer trains on some lines and additional trains on others that last week saw overcrowding and skipped stations, Kneuppel said.
The New Jersey Transit equipment, leased at a cost of $15,570 per week, is being used to run additional night and morning rush hour trains along the Trenton line, according to Ron Hopkins, assistant general manager of operations for SEPTA.
SEPTA is paying Amtrak more than $16,000 a week to lease its equipment, which is being used to add extra express trains during the morning rush on the Thorndale line between the Bryn Mawr station and Suburban Station in Center City.
SEPTA is also leasing five passenger cars from the Maryland Area Regional Commuter system for $19,462 weekly, but they have yet to be put into service. According to Knueppel, the trains are still being inspected to see if they are fit to ride on the rails.
"Some of these cars haven't run in a while," Kneuppel said.
During Monday morning's commute, nine trains total on the Thorndale and Doylestown lines bypassed stations because they were full, mostly between Bryn Mawr and Center City on the Thorndale line and Glenside and Center City on the Doylestown line. Four additional trains had to skip stations on the Doylestown line, Knueppel said,
In order to combat this problem, he said, SEPTA added additional "clean-up trains" to these lines, hoping to cut passenger wait times.
SEPTA plans to add an additional regular train to the Doylestown schedule to help alleviate those issues.
The cost of the leased equipment will come out of SEPTA's operating budget, Knueppel said.
Knueppel said that SEPTA will monitor the situation this week and stands ready to add express busing at stops where it is necessary.
