The Federal Rail Administration has ordered SEPTA to immediately conduct another round of employee safety training in response to a report that the agency had five Regional Rail car fires this year, including two in late September.
SEPTA must ensure each train crew reports any fault indicator lights or equipment failures to the agency’s mechanical department, which must then determine if cars should be immediately removed from service, the FRA said. It must also conduct a “stand-down” with all mechanical and transportation department employees in which they are told the details of the order and the five incidents.
The transit agency took steps in August to improve crews’ responses to signs of problems on railcars, such as the appearance of smoke or warning lights illuminating. But the occurrence of two subsequent incidents last month forced FRA to issue an emergency order on Wednesday, FRA acting administrator Robert Andrew Feely said.
“The pattern of failures persuades FRA that reliance alone upon the prior assurances and cooperation of SEPTA is not possible, nor in the interest of public safety,” Feely wrote. “I find that the unsafe conditions … create an emergency situation involving a hazard of death or injury to persons.”
SEPTA said on Thursday that the required safety reinforcement briefings were under way and could make crews unavailable to operate trains during their regular shifts. Riders may experience delays, cancelations or crowded trains, the agency said.
The FRA announcement follows the release on Monday of a National Transportation Safety Board report on the fires, and largely orders SEPTA to take steps that NTSB had recommended.
The transit agency must also commission its own investigation of the causes of the fires, do comprehensive investigations of all 225 of its older Silverliner IV railcars by Oct. 30, debrief every employee who does mechanical work on the cars, install circuits that detect high temperatures and automatically shut down train systems, and undertake several other safety measures.
Problems 50 years in making
SEPTA has been working for months to investigate the cause of two fires in February and June. But the NTSB report issued Monday revealed there were three more this year and urged the agency to pull the old cars off the tracks.
“The outdated design of Silverliner IV railcars, in combination with the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority’s maintenance and operating practices, represents an immediate and unacceptable safety risk because of the incidence and severity of electrical fires that can spread to occupied compartments,” the NTSB said.
The FRA said SEPTA could comply with its order either by completing the list of specified actions or removing the railcars from service.
SEPTA has said it does not plan to remove the cars, which could make it impossible to continue operating the Regional Rail system on anywhere near its regular schedule. The Silverliner IVs, which are all at least 50 years old, are about two-thirds of SEPTA’s 390 passenger-carrying railcars.
But the transit agency said it has put in place 40 “mitigation measures” to try to prevent future fires, including “additional notifications and safety checks to our personnel to audible alarms for fault lights.”
“Due to these efforts, we are confident that we can safely continue service with the Silverliner IV fleet, and we are committed to continuing to work hand-in-hand with the FRA and NTSB,” SEPTA said.
The NTSB report did not determine the causes of the fires, which forced passengers to evacuate as the flames spread and destroyed several cars, with a replacement cost of tens of millions dollars.
But the board’s detailed descriptions of the incidents point to overheating of certain electrical components in cars’ propulsion systems, a part failure in a braking system, and an unspecified problem in a traction motor as the apparent initial sources of the fires.
In some of the incidents, SEPTA operators continued running trains after a fault light came on. One of the fires, near a station in Fort Washington, Pa., “was associated” with a recent repair rather than with a defective component, the report said. The two recent fires, on Sept. 23 and 25, occurred even after SEPTA had given personnel new instructions on how to respond to smoke and certain other problems, and conducted a series of railcar inspections.
“The NTSB concludes that SEPTA’s current operating practices for the Silverliner IV fleet are insufficient to protect passengers and crews because railcars with electrical faults are not being identified and promptly removed from service,” the report said.
Fault lights ignored, brake components ignite
The NTSB report describes five fires:
– On Feb. 6, an engineer on a Trenton/Newark line train saw a fault light illuminate, and later a maintenance team detected several problems, but a dispatcher ordered the train to keep running. Near Crum Lynne Station in Ridley Park, an engineer saw smoke and then fire, and the crew and 325 passengers evacuated. “Preliminary findings indicate that the fire started in the railcar’s undercarriage when electrical components associated with the train’s propulsion system overheated and ignited,” the report said.
– On June 3, the roof of a railcar burned and about 150 passengers were evacuated at Levittown Station in New Jersey. Investigators found signs of overheating on a brake component, and believe a brake motor failed and a switch that controls the brake was out of calibration. The brakes got stuck, causing an electrical component to overheat and igniting a fiberglass roof ventilation duct.
– On July 22, a Paoli/Thorndale night train experienced fault lights, slow acceleration and power loss, and 14 passengers were evacuated at Paoli Station after smoke was detected. Preliminary findings point to the propulsion system, as in the Ridley Park fire.
– On Sept. 23, crews saw smoke coming from the roof of an afternoon train approaching Fort Washington Station. It was the same railcar that had a fire in Levittown. About 350 passengers were evacuated. The fire began with electrical components near a brake resistor on the roof. The components had been replaced after the Levittown incident, and the fire was associated with the repairs.
– On Sept. 25 at about 7 a.m., a crew noticed a car was on fire at Gravers Station in Philadelphia, on the Chestnut Hill East line. About 25 passengers were evacuated. The train had been operating since the previous day with a fault light on. “Preliminary findings indicate that the fire started on a traction motor in the train’s undercarriage,” the report said.
New railcars long overdue
The NTSB noted the Silverliner IV cars have never been refurbished and don’t meet federal fire safety standards created in 1999 and amended in 2002.
Among other issues, they don’t have a required separation between parts of the cars that can catch fire and passenger areas, the report says. They lack modern feedback systems that give detailed information on malfunctioning brakes and electrical systems, and SEPTA further increased risks by not properly responding to electrical faults.
In late August, SEPTA laid out several steps it was taking in response to the fires, which align with the FRA order. They include reducing use of the Silverliner IVs, inspecting electrical components, replacing fiberglass roof air ducts with stainless steel ducts, increasing propulsion and braking system testing, and installing circuits to detect overheating and automatically shut systems down.
The agency also pledged to analyze the causes of the first three fires, and use the information to address the problems and review its schedule for overhauling or replacing Silverliner IV cars.
However, “the NTSB concludes that the risks posed by the Silverliner IV’s outdated design cannot be fully addressed without an extensive fleet retrofit or replacement,” the federal agency said. “The NTSB recommends that SEPTA create an expedited procurement or retrofit schedule and seek funding from appropriate sources as soon as possible.”
SEPTA general manager Scott Sauer said this week that he was confident that the railcars are safe, but the agency is reportedly also looking to take bids from manufacturers for new cars. That would cost at least $1.8 billion, the agency has estimated, and take five to seven years.
“Due to funding constraints, SEPTA has had to keep these rail cars long beyond the time they should have been retired,” the agency said.
Mayor Cherelle Parker also weighed in on the report, calling the NTSB recommendations “very disturbing … and all too predictable.”
She said the findings reinforce her apprehensions over last month’s resolution of SEPTA’s budget crisis. After the state legislature failed to agree to a plan for increased transit funding, Gov. Josh Shapiro directed the agency to take $394 million out of a state transportation capital fund to temporarily close its budget deficit.
“We cannot gamble with the long-term health of SEPTA by diverting critical capital dollars away from infrastructure, maintenance and safety,” Parker said. “The NTSB’s action and recommendations today underscore the importance of approving a sustainable, recurring funding source for SEPTA’s operations.”
The post After 5 Regional Rail fires, federal agency orders new round of SEPTA crew trainings appeared first on Billy Penn at WHYY.
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