Month: November 2012

In October, Altoona’s AMTRAN bus system welcomed 3 new Gillig LF Hybrid buses to the fleet.  These Gilligs are AMTRAN’s first hybrid buses, being powered by a smaller engine (Cummins ISB?) with the Allison Parallel Hybrid System.  The new additions to the fleet will replace a few of the remaining 1993 Orion I buses.  One bus, 902, was painted in a special scheme in honor of AMTRAN’s long relationship with Penn State Altoona.

For more details about the ribbon cutting, please click on the link: http://www.amtran.org/index.asp?pageId=13&nid=38

7251 operating on the Route 18 was involved in an MVA this morning around 8:15 AM.  7251 was struck by a car that ran a red light causing the bus to crash into several parked cars and become pinned on the sidewalk.  9 passengers on the bus were taken to the hospital.  The bus operator was also transported with a head injury from hitting the windshield after the crash.  

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=8882222

The Route 71 Navy Yard shuttle between the Navy Yard and Pattison Station on the Broad Street Subway Line will be discontinued at the end of service on Friday, November 30th, 2012.  Beginning Monday, December 3rd the Navy Yard will begin offering a free bus loop service between the same points along with express bus service to and from Center City.  For more information visit http://www.navyyard.org/.  Route 68 service to Tastykake and Route 17 weekend service to the Naval Base will continue to operate. 

Not too much to say here but pictures are certainly worth an thousand words. these photos shows what kind of damage which Hurricane Sandy caused along the New Jersey coastline. The most incredible damage occured along the NJT’s North Jersey Coast Line.

Images courtasy of (NJ_TRANSIT’s photostream)

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nj_transit/page3/

   

Tomorrow morning at around 10:30 AM, thirty (30) SEPTA buses will be on their way to New Jersey on loan. These buses are to be used as a bus substitution on the NJT rail lines which were damaged due to Hurricane Sandy. It’s unknowned as it stands now which of the 30 buses which will be sent to New Jersey and which routes they would be used,. These buses will be sent from Conshohoken, PA (Frontier Depot) and to New New Brunswick, NJ (CoachUSA), .

We will post more infomation as it will become available.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20121103_SEPTA_sending_buses_to_help_shuttle_riders_to_NYC.html

The Airport Regional Rail Line will be operating with shuttle buses next weekend (November 10th-11th) between 30th Street Station and the Airport Terminals.  Train service will begin / end at 30th Street.  Shuttle buses will start at University City Station at the regular train time, then proceed to 30th Street and pick up passengers in the inner station driveway before proceeding onwards to the Airport Terminals for drop off in the Departures Roadway.  Buses will then go to Eastwick Station.  Shuttle buses will leave Eastwick Station at the regular train departure times and proceed to the Airport Terminals picking up on the Arrivals Roadway before heading to 30th Street and then University City Station.  For more info see http://septa.org/alert/air.html .

Hurricane Sandy has come and gone from the region.  In its wake lots of damage and destruction and mass transit was not spared.  Locally SEPTA was shut down from 12:30 AM Monday until about 12:00 Noon Tuesady with Regional Rail coming back Wednesday morning.  SEPTA managed to escape Sandy largely unscathed with most of the damage being from downed trees.  New Jersey Transit was not so lucky.  Their rail operations center at the Meadows Maintenance Complex (MMC) was submerged and caused damage to the train control computers and the back up systems.  Also damaged were 65 locomotives and 257 rail cars.  NJT resumed bus service in Camden County on Wednesday with the River Line coming back in the afternoon running a Sunday schedule and not running south of Walter Rand TC.  More bus routes state wide resumed operation today with no timetable on the return of rail service.

 

UPDATE: Limited rail service has resumed on the NEC Line bewteen Trenton and New York.  All other lines remain suspended. 

UPDATE 11/04: Full service restored on the Atlantic City Rail Line along with partial service on the Raritan Valley Line and North Jersey Coast Line.