July 05, 2016
In a post-mortem on the first rush hour since pulling a third of its trains out of service, SEPTA officials Tuesday afternoon said they saw the anticipated packed trains and some missed stops, but no major issues.
At the same time, however, they warned of greater impact on Wednesday, as more riders return from an extended July Fourth holiday.
According to Jeff Knueppel, SEPTA's general manager, trains filled to capacity bypassed stops on the Doylestown, Warminster, Norristown and Trenton lines. But, he said, SEPTA tried to operate additional trains on the lines to keep riders from having to wait the full hour for the next train.
"For the most part, it worked," Knueppel said. "I am concerned that we will have more people coming back into the system tomorrow."
In order to help ease the impact after 120 Silverliner V train cars were sidelined due to safety concerns over a defect in suspension systems, Knueppel said SEPTA is working with Amtrak, as well as the transportation departments of New Jersey and Maryland, in an attempt to secure additional vehicles or equipment as work proceeds to get the railcars back in service.
"It wouldn't be a lot. Nobody is sitting on stockpiles of vehicles," he said. "But every little bit helps."
He also urged riders to use SEPTA's subway lines or buses to avoid the Regional Rail overcrowding. Extra lots set up by the transit agency in South Philadelphia and along the Delaware River were not used much on Tuesday morning, Kneuppel said.
And the parking lot near the stop in Norristown, he said, was "very underutilized today."
Meanwhile, SEPTA is still working to determine "what happened and how it happened," Kneuppel said.
"There's a bunch of things moving on that front," he said.
SEPTA is looking at the possibility of using non-defective wheel assemblies from some trains to replace defective ones on others in an effort to get some trains running.
At least one Silverliner V railcar will undergo a "top-to-bottom" inspection, in order to determine if there are other issues with the fleet.
But, he said, the original defect – fatigue cracks in an equalizer beam in the suspension system – is not a problem that happened overnight. Such cracks develop over time and figuring out what caused them – on trains no more than six years old – could take time.
"There is certainly a long road ahead," he said.
Kneuppel said there could be numerous potential reasons for the cracks, including faulty workmanship by manufacturer Hyundai Rotem, bad welds on the equalizer beams or a design flaw in the part itself.
SEPTA is working with the South Korean company that built the railcars to figure that out.
"We are working with Hyundai Rotem to make sure we have all the pieces together," he said. "They have definitely been supportive. They have flown in a lot of people... I think everybody is working very, very cooperatively."
Knueppel said SEPTA hopes to know more about the cause of the issues by the end of the week.
