(The following story by Paul Nussbaum appeared on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on July 25.)
PHILADELPHIA — Rebuffed in its effort to lease old NJ Transit railcars, SEPTA officials yesterday agreed to buy eight railcars from NJT to help ease overcrowding on Regional Rail lines.
SEPTA’s board agreed to pay $670,000 for the eight cars, a scrapped car for parts, and associated parts and service.
Last month, the SEPTA board had agreed to spend $10,000 a month for up to three years to lease the cars. But SEPTA was unable to meet NJT’s requirements for insurance and liability indemnification, general manager Joseph Casey said.
The cars, to augment SEPTA’s existing fleet of 348 cars until new Silverliner V cars begin arriving in 2009, are to be put into service next month.
SEPTA rail ridership, up 12 percent from a year ago, is at its highest point in 25 years, and many rush-hour trains are packed with standing passengers.
The eight railcars, which are being retired by NJ Transit as new double-decker cars come on line, must be used with SEPTA locomotives because they are not self-propelled like most of SEPTA’s fleet.
The NJ Transit cars will allow SEPTA to increase the length – and the capacity – of its seven locomotive-pulled trains.
SEPTA will get its first Silverliner V prototype next month, and passengers will get a sneak preview of the new car in September, Casey said yesterday.
Rotem USA Corp., a division of South Korean automaker Hyundai Motors Group, and Sojitz Corp., a Japanese company, have formed a consortium to build 120 Silverliners for $274 million.
The railcars are to be assembled at a South Philadelphia plant from components brought in from around the world. The initial three test cars are being built in South Korea.
The new Silverliners will replace 73 railcars that were built for SEPTA in the 1960s. With the retirement of the old cars and the addition of the new ones, SEPTA will have about 400 by 2010.
SEPTA also agreed yesterday to sell its rail on the old Bethlehem line, which has been out of service since 1981. SEPTA will get $3.1 million for the rail, which will be used for another rail operation.
The Bethlehem line will be converted to a trail, although SEPTA will retain the right to restore rail service there.
Two speakers, Scott Mates of the Delaware Valley Association of Rail Passengers and Kyle Gradinger of the urban design firm Wallace, Roberts & Todd, urged the board not to take out the rail, citing concerns that it would make it more difficult to restore service later.
Also yesterday, a SEPTA bus driver was honored for helping Philadelphia police officers subdue a combative armed robbery suspect.
Harry Haus, an 18-year veteran driver on SEPTA’s Routes 14 and 20, came to the aid of Officers Michael McDermott and Alan Petrosky on June 9 when he saw them struggling with a man at Bustleton and Harbison Avenues in Northeast Philadelphia.
One of the officers’ guns had been knocked loose, and Haus jumped from his car and pulled the suspect’s arm behind his back to allow police to handcuff him.
“It was just a reaction,” Haus said yesterday. “I would hope I would do it again.”
Both officers remain off duty with their injuries, said Mark Mroz, Second District community relations officer. McDermott had facial cuts, and Petrosky suffered a shoulder injury, Mroz said.