(The following story by Alfred Lubrano appeared on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on August 21.)
PHILADELPHIA — The train is late.
It is in fact, expected to be 40 hours behind schedule, and counting.
Of course, the train isn’t on a track, and if you want to get technical, it isn’t even a real train.
This might be a good time to explain.
A sleek and pretty prototype of one of the new, soon-to-be operational SEPTA Silverliner V railcars was taken off a slow boat from South Korea on Tuesday.
It was then loaded onto an even slower truck at the Tioga Marine Terminal yesterday, ready for a four-hour, snail crawl up to SEPTA’s Liberty Yard near Broad Street and Erie Avenue, starting around 10 a.m.
There, the 85-foot-long behemoth was to be studied, admired and generally adored by SEPTA engineers presumably Christmas-morning giddy about their new toy. SEPTA ordered 120 of the beauties for $274 million, and we’re scheduled to see them in 2009.
But the thing about mass transit is: Nothing ever seems to happen on time.
Yesterday morning, it took longer than expected for workers to make sure the load was secure, and that all permits were in order. That kept the train-on-truck tandem stranded at the Tioga Marine Terminal, SEPTA spokesman Francis Kelly said.
And, as it happens, the driver of a truck with such a heavy load can’t just MapQuest the quickest route from the marine terminal to the trainyard (15 minutes or so at prudent speeds), slip on a Carrie Underwood CD, then rock on.
Street widths, overhead wires, bridges, overpasses and road tolerances all have to be considered.
The truck must then take a carefully mapped out, circuitous route from the terminal that includes I-95 South, Columbus Boulevard, Oregon Avenue and Broad Street.
And, of course, the truck has to move slower than your grandmother walking on ice.
Obviously, such a load can only roll on city streets at certain times of day.
While it might be diverting for a motorist to see the future of SEPTA’s Regional Rail lines on a truck 10 feet ahead, he might get peeved if he were stuck behind it during rush hour.
The revised plan as of last night was to allow the truck to start rolling around 10 p.m. yesterday. Then it was changed to 2 this morning. Now, SEPTA is saying it’ll be 2 a.m. tomorrow, with a 6 a.m. arrival time.
“Once our engineers get their hands on it, they’ll twist and turn it,” Kelly said, describing what will doubtless be quite the party for egghead transit types.
Ultimately, the cars will be assembled at a South Philadelphia plant by Rotem USA Corp., a consortium of a division of South Korean automaker Hyundai Motors Group, and Sojitz Corp., a Japanese company.
SEPTA plans to display the prototype for the public next month.
But you might catch the train after the bars close Friday morning.
Just don’t be upset if it’s late.