News Archives - Page: 12

Starting Sunday, December 7th, a specially decorated Holiday Trolley (likely a PCC II) will be running on route 15.  This trolley is likely similar to the decorated Kawasaki LRV that was running on the 10 trolley last year.  Callowhill Operator Gary Mason decorates a trolley car every year for the holiday season.

The good news is that this trolley will be operating on a specific schedule this year.  View the schedule below to see when you may be able to catch the Holiday Trolley:

Recently, there was a lot of controversy behind the cabs of the soon-to-be-built Silverliner V railcars.  Engineers were up in arms about the half-cab, citing comfort and safety issues for both them and the riders.  SEPTA listened, and now the cars will have full width cabs.  It's a disappointment for railfans, but certainly is necessary for the safe operations of our Regional Rail system.

Hopefully the partition will be transparent rather than an opaque wall.

Once again, SEPTA is going to operate the Santa Express trains on the Market Frankford Line, the Broad Street Line, and two Regional Rail lines (R5 Paoli-Thorndale and R8 Chestnut Hill West) on Friday, November 28th.  For more details about this event, please visit the following location on the SEPTA website: http://www.septa.org/news/promotions/santa_express.html

Yesterday, well over million people attend the Phillies parade. It’s has been a mess - throughout the day crews on the Regional Rail tried to keep up with the fans waiting at train stations. Unfortunately, the trains skipped many stations with fully packed trains. Once the fans realized this has occurred, they started venturing onto the buses.

69th street terminal was inundated with fans trying to board the EL shuttle. Crews rushed to get equipment on the Routes 100-102 to operate as a double consist versus the normal weekday one consists.

From my observation, the route G was fully loaded from Overbook station so everyone who was trying to caught the G past Overbook station had a long long wait. The 44, the same thing, although SEPTA did managed to get a bus operating on the route 52 to change into the 44. Not the mention the issues, the route 100 operated on single tracks throughout segments of the route.

Forum member SEPTA_Kid said “Many trips on the 27 never left Plymouth MTG mall. There were alot of disappointed Phillies fans there, but they decided to take the L bus and then the BSL!
Today was fun, and Many schools, including mine was closed!”

Member Jayayess1190 said “Rode the C to Center City, was slow as hell. Packed with fans. Coming back we (mom, bro, and I) waited for the C, never showed up, so we took the BSL from Spring Garden (got free transfers!), then the 6 to Cheltenham/Ogontz and drove home from there.”

Around 1PM yesterday, service was canceled for 90 minutes on the Regional Rail lines. This was to give crews a chance place the right equipment down in center city to meet the demand of the parade. Later in the afternoon roughly 3PM, several extra trains were added to revenue service. Several posters on railroad.net said all available equipment has been put into service to try and meet the demand.

SEPTA tried to handle this demand to the best of their abilities. As the fans kept on coming there was nothing else they could do…

Yesterday was an historical day for SEPTA as the system was being overloaded with 3 times as many riders as you would expect on a typical weekday.

My Self personally managers of this parade has a ton of things to answer for!! Why plan this parade on a Friday with no time to plan things out!! Hopefully in the coming weeks there will be answers!!

[[Photo right: Courtasy of Jayayess1190]]

On Monday, SEPTA, PATCO and the Center City District unveiled one of their brand new transit portal signs.  These signs will be used at 100 subway/trolley/Regional Rail station entrances throughout the 3 1/3 mile underground concourse in Center City.  So far, these signs have been posted at the following locations:

18th and JFK, southeast corner – Suburban Station Regional Rail (SEPTA)
19th and Market, northeast corner – Subway Surface Trolley (SEPTA)
Broad and Walnut, southwest corner – Broad Street Line (SEPTA)
13th and Market, northeast corner – Market Frankford Subway Line (SEPTA)
1525 Locust – Lindenwold High Speed Line (PATCO)
The Clothespin, Centre Square plaza, 15th and Market (Market Frankford, Broad Street, Subway Surface, Regional Rail Lines (SEPTA)

For more details and a picture, please visit the following website: http://www.centercityphila.org/invitations/transitportals1008.php. You can also take a survey about these signs on the homepage of SEPTA's website.

This morning, the SEPTA Comet Is were spotted in service.  They are in a solid consist and were apparently being pushed by AEM-7 # 2307.  Keep an eye out for it for future push-pull trips, as we're not quite sure where it may be running.  Also, this trainset may be switched around two other lines.  For a list of push-pull assignments, please visit this page on our website: http://www.philadelphiatransitvehicles.info/reg-roster2.php

Brandon S., over the weekend has uploaded a recording the hybrid #8133.

Check it out!

http://www.philadelphiatransitvehicles.info/multimedia/displayimage-148-26.html

[[Photo:right - Courtasy of Jayayess1190]]

Engineers are training on the Comet I cars in-around Frazier.  There have been reports that these units was not able to coexist with the current AEM-7 cars because of HEP issues, they may operate as a single consist with a ALP-44 unit. These cars are currently slated to enter service beginning on October 26th 2008 (next schedule change on the Regional Rail lines). These cars were recently purchased from NJT to address the current overcrowded situation.

boomer, a member on the Railroad.net forums has several shots of these Comet Is at the Frazier Shops.

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=54926&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=30#p587610

For Photos

http://s485.photobucket.com/albums/rr220/rrbum/SEPTA%20Comet%201/

((Photo to the right: EX-NJT 5121: Courtasy of railroad.net's member Boomer))

According to Darryl Bulls of SEPTATransitVehicleNewsNetwork (A yahoo group), the current assignments of the New Hybrids are as follows:

Callowhill: 8120-8164
Comly: 8165-8199
Victory: 8200-8209
Fronter: 8210-8219

Hybrid 8120 (like 8000 back in 2005) is the pilot bus of the fleet.  More then likely it will be one of the last units placed into service.  The order as it stands now is 40% completed with the highest units to entered service is 8153 at Callowhill and 8174 at Comly, respectively.

((Photo to the right: New Shipment of Hybrids at Germantown Depot - Courtasy of Jayayess1190))

From SEPTA news page:

Combining community spirit and a celebration of 150 years of trolley service between Delaware County and Philadelphia, SEPTA is proud to support the annual OcTrolleyFest, this Saturday, October 18 at Powell Park on New Walnut Street in Darby. From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. enjoy a delightful mix of food, fun and live music along with the opportunity to hop a ride aboard one of SEPTA’s rebuilt PCC trolley cars for a tour of the Darby, Yeadon, Colwyn and Southwest Philadelphia neighborhoods. Events are free and open to the public. Learn more by visiting www.octrolleyfest.org

Over the past week, 15 hybrid buses (8134-8149) were placed into revenue service at Callowhill.  Thus, this forced Callowhill to send their older NABI fleet to other depots.  These NABIS include: 5002-5003, 5005, and 5009 which were transferred to Midvale, 5011 is now at Southern, and Victory now has 5014 and 5016.  It’s quite possible more Callowhill and Comly NABIS will be reassigned to other depots as more hybrids are coming in.

Finally, the Silverliner V will be displayed to the public on track 0 at Suburban Station from October 2nd to October 16th, 11AM to 6PM.  The showing will start with a special ceremony with General Manager Joe Casey tomorrow at noon.

Out of the 35 new Trackless trolleys in service, about eighteen (18) of these units are now out of service because of electrical issues.  Many of these issues are because of a short which is found in their electrical system.  As result for the next several months, some trackless trolleys will be pulled from service so that SEPTA could give could address these issues.

Photo of Trackless #822 on route 75 - Taken by Kyle Wallace

Sure enough, with only about two weeks being on the property, SEPTA is already putting advertisements on the new hybrids.  They now have side and rear ads.  A few of them even have banner ads along the roof line, including 8129.

Also of note, with the new hybrids coming in, Callowhill is sending some of their original 50xx Ikaruses to Midvale.  Several of them in no particular order have been spotted on Midvale routes, including 5025 and 5031.  5030 was spotted at Comly a few days ago as well.  Also of note 5552, 5555, 5556, and 5557 are now at Midvale.  5552 and 5556 were on the 32 yesterday while 5557 was on the 9 and 5555 was on the 56.  Expect things to go a little crazy in terms of bus assignments while the new hybrids are coming in.

Amtrak and PennDOT came together to put up a new website highlighting the Keystone line from Harrisburg to New York, via Philadelphia.  There's information about why people should take the train, as well as details about the amenities at each station along the line.  Check it out at www.catchthekeystone.com.