If your mood hinges on a mellow ride into or home from Center City, better brace yourself: Delays, cancellations and sardine-level crowding will be the norm across SEPTA’s Regional Rail lines this week.
Faced with a federally mandated safety inspection for its decades-old Silverliner IV railcars, SEPTA has scrambled to keep trains running while cycling cars through emergency checks after a string of onboard fires put the spotlight on aging equipment. The upshot? The Agency announced that it would be further cutting service this week to complete its audits before a government-mandated Nov. 14 deadline.
As of Monday, 22 trains across the Airport, Fox Chase and Chestnut Hill West lines were already canceled, according to advisories from SEPTA and rider alerts. The Paoli/Thorndale, Lansdale/Doylestown, Trenton and Warrington lines also saw cancellations.
Commuters have been seeing, and will continue to see:
- Trimmed-down trains, often with just two or three cars instead of the usual five or six, which means standing room only — if you can board at all.
- Skipped stops, particularly at stations closer to Center City, as trains reach max capacity before they even get halfway into town.
- A constantly shifting mix of pre-announced and last-minute cancellations, along with delays stretching from the western suburbs to the Airport line.
SEPTA says it’s working around the clock to finish audits, but warns riders to expect the headache to last well into November as they repair the issues raised by the audit. Agency leaders urge passengers to check the official Alerts page or SEPTA app for real-time updates, and to consider alternative bus or metro routes if their train isn’t coming.
“We understand safety concerns can raise questions, and we want our riders to feel assured we are taking every step possible to ensure their safety as we work to provide critical service,” SEPTA GM Scott Sauer said in a release Sunday evening.
It’s been a difficult year for SEPTA and commuters. The feds last week also set in motion a review of the trolley system.
Beyond the safety issues, the transit agency has been caught in a state budget funding battle that led to temporary service cuts and permanent fair hikes in September. Despite a stopgap solution, the funding issues remain largely unresolved in the long term.
Regional Rail serves about 80,000 commuters on a typical weekeday.
The post Packed cars, cancellations, and delay headaches: Regional Rail riders should brace for a rough week appeared first on Billy Penn at WHYY.
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