The Philadelphia Chapter of the

National Railway Historical Society

Established in 1936

SEPTA dropped a bombshell on its Regional Rail customers over the holiday weekend. On July 1 2016, an engineer noticed that Silverliner V 812 was slightly leaning to one side. The married pair was moved to Overbrook Shop for further inspection. The problem was with the equalizer beam on one of the trucks; it had cracked so totally that it had broken and wedged in so tight it needed to be cut loose from the truck. Inspection of other cars revealed cracks in those beams as well. By Saturday a speed restriction was issued to all Silverliner V still out on the rails, and those in outlying stations and yards were brought in for examination. All in all, 115 of the 120 cars showed varying degrees of cracks, and the prudent decision was made to remove all of the cars from service.

Being a holiday weekend, SEPTA was still able to cover the passenger load with its remaining cars, but for the first weekday, Tuesday July 5 2016, they realized that a reduced schedule was required. The result was a modified weekend schedule with a few additional rush hour trains added on all lines with the exception of the Cynwyd Line where all service was replaced by busses. In all cases, this was a drastic cutback in service. For example, for the morning rush the Lansdale/Doylestown Line normally would have, before 9:00, 11 inbound trains through Lansdale, 6 of them originating in Doylestown. The new interim schedule had 5 inbound with 3 out of Doylestown, with most train six car Silverliner IV consists. The real victims were reverse commuters, with early morning outbound trains from the city down from 5 to 1 before 9:00, and that one train arrived at 8:20. The evening rush saw a reduction from 9 trains to 3 departing Center City between 16:00 and 18:00. Fun for all.

With a couple days warning, many commuters sensed what the ride in was going to be and were lined up bright and early to get the second train into the city on Tuesday as Train 5307 pulls into Lansdale with 6 Silverliner IV's.

All pictures July 5 2016

Copyright © 2016 John P. Almeida

Photographs for personal use only. All rights reserved by original owner of image. Reproduction or redistribution in any form without express written permission is prohibited.