NTSB Issues Urgent Warning Over Safety Of Half Of SEPTA Fleet

PHILADELPHIA ? Federal authorities have issued urgent recommendations to SEPTA regarding more than half of its railcar fleet after saying some trains pose risks of electrical fires.

The trains in question are SEPTA's Silverliner IV railcars, which are SEPTA's oldest railcars and among some of the oldest in the nation, SEPTA General Manager Scott Sauer said at a news conference about the NTSB report Wednesday.

Of SEPTA's 390 passenger-carrying railcar fleet, 225 are Silverliner IVs. The fleet includes passenger coaches, cab cars, and self-propelled units.

"Due to our ongoing funding constraints, we have had to continue to operate these trains long beyond the time they should have been retired," Sauer said.

The Silverliner IV fleet has not been refurbished since its original deployment, which was between 1974 and 1976, according to the NTSB.

These trains were involved in fires on Feb. 6 in Ridley Park, June 3 in Levittown, July 22 in Paoli, Sept. 23 in Fort Washington, and Sept. 25 in Philadelphia, according to federal investigators.

Authorities said the trains' outdated design and SEPTA's maintenance and operating practices created the risk of electrical fires, which can also spread to occupied train compartments.

Investigators said the recurrence of fires, despite SEPTA's attempted fixes, shows "organizational lapses that block effective risk mitigation."

The NTSB found that the risks posed by the design cannot be fully addressed without an extensive fleet retrofit or replacement.

According to federal officials, SEPTA's proposed changes to its operations, maintenance and engineering activities require ongoing monitoring to ensure they protect passengers and crews.

The NTSB provided the following recommendations to SEPTA regarding the Silverliner IV railcars.

• Suspend operation of the Silverliner IV fleet until the transit agency determines the root causes of fires, develops and implements a plan to address these causes and identifies and corrects the organizational factors that have prevented effective risk mitigations.
• Implement a plan to monitor the success of its risk-mitigation approach to the Silverliner IV fleet, including provisions for immediately removing the fleet from service again if its mitigations fail to prevent fires.
• Create an expedited procurement or retrofit schedule and seek funding from appropriate sources as soon as possible to accelerate the replacement of the Silverliner IV fleet or its retrofit to include modern feedback systems and meet federal fire safety standards for new railcars.

See the NTSB's full safety recommendations report online here.

After the Ridley Park train fire, SEPTA began implementing 40 mitigation measures, Sauer said.

Sauer said this work has been done in cooperation with the NTSB and the Federal Railroad Administration.

He said with these measures, and additional in-person train inspections and live video monitoring, SEPTA is confident it can safely continue using the Silverliner IV trains.

These trains have been used less than the rest of its fleet, as well, Sauer said.

"We are going to continue to work closely with the FRA and NTSB, and continue to work the mitigation measures to ensure service remains safe," he said.

Mayor Cherrelle Parker called the report's findings "very disturbing," but said the results were "all too predictable."

"When anyone questioned my concerns and apprehension last month about SEPTA using capital funds for operating costs, this moment is why," she said in a statement Wednesday. "I have been adamant that Philadelphia and our Southeast Pennsylvania region need to protect and strengthen our capital investments in SEPTA to ensure the safety, reliability and future of our transit system for the 700,000 people who use SEPTA every day."