Author: van2025ko

Thanks to the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) No or Low Emission Vehicle Deployment Program, SEPTA received $2.6 million to order 25 battery-electric buses from Proterra along with 5 overhead charging stations. Not only are these buses wireless and 100% electric, but they also can recharge at an overhead charging station while the operator is laying over.  

This is Proterra’s first order from a major city on the East Coast, and one of its largest orders from a major transit agency.

These 40ft buses will run on routes 29 and 79, both of which are former Trackless Trolley lines, since the lines are short and relatively flat. SEPTA expects to receive the buses some time next year.

For more details: http://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/04/20/septa-grant-electric-buses/

The fourth batch of the Novabus order (7455-7484) has begun the arrive several weeks ago. These buses are slated to be assigned at Southern depot where they would operate on the route 17. This would be the first time in history where the route 17 has have artic/bendy buses to operate on it. Currently two buses (7338 and 7400) are at Southern depot for the purpose to train operators on the route 17.

SEPTA has released their plans for the weekend when the Pope will arrive in Philadelphia. There are numerious of routes which are not running or have some drastic changes being made to them for the September 26th and September 27th. Be sure to check these changes out

 

http://septa.org/fares/special-papal-visit.html

SEPTA Selector is an Web application using data derived from SEPTA which tracks a massive fleet of buses. This is basically the transit enthusiast verison of Transitview. This app enables users to sort which type of buses would appear up, whether it is Nova, NABIs, Neoplans, or New Flyers.  The user can also sort by depot as well.

Please check it out:

https://trackyourtransit.com/Selectors/loadarea/Philly

Today is the day the Novabus has begun their inaugural runs in revenue service. The 62′ Novabus artics are to be operated on the Route 48. Also it should be interesting to note, that Midvale again testing 40′ foot Novabuses on the route 23. The last time when testing has occured was back in August.

Also with the Novabuses arriving into service, a batch of Neoplan An460 (fleet ranges from #7101 to #7255) has been retired from revenue service. Over the weekend, SEPTA has moved a dozen Neoplans to Midvale’s scrap yard. The roster has been updated to reflect these changes. After 35 years operating in this region, the Neoplan era in Philadelpha is coming to end.

During the summer, SEPTA started a pilot program on Friday and Saturday nights to run the Broad Street Line and Market-Frankford Line all night long instead of using OWL buses. Ridership has skyrocketed, with almost double the amount of people using the trains over the bus service that existed beforehand.  Although it costs a bit more to run trains all night instead of just the buses (mainly due to the additional police officers and cashiers required for the service), SEPTA has decided to continue running the All Night weekend service for the foreseeable future.  Weekday OWL bus service will continue as normal.

Recently there has been a slew of rumors going around regarding the replacements for the Eldorados. Now onto the rumors, it has been rumored that either the New Flyer Midi or Gillig 30 foot advantages will be replacing not only the aging the Eldorados but also the cutaways on contracting services [Lucy(316), 312, 204, 206, and 310). The delivery of these new buses is apparently to occur in either December or Janurary.

Now onto the hardcore facts. The Eldorados are aging and are soon to be 14 years old. These buses were built back in 2001 to have an life cycle of 10 years. Now these buses being 13 and going onto 14, so a replacement is inevitable. The end all and be all is the Eldorados as well as most of the Cutaway fleet are due to be replaced.

 

http://forums.philadelphiatransitvehicles.info/topic/7430917/1/

Edited July 4th 2014  14:15 After many months of rumors and perhaps one rumor about the fate of this order, the first production bus (7306) has arrived on SEPTA’s property at Germantown. This bus for the next few weeks will be used for testing. If it passes the evaluation, SEPTA will give the delivery a green light.

 

The article also stated that Novabus is being fine $100 a day per bus which is late. Well, perhaps if these buses were not so customized – SEPTA would receive them on time. This has been the second order in recent years where the manufacturer has been fine due to lateness. The previous order which was late was Rotem with the delivery of the Silverliner V. In any case – that is neither here nor there. The bottom line is that SEPTA need new buses.  The older artic buses which SEPTA have are causing all sorts of reliability issues.  Approximately 10 buses were recently loaned out to Alleghany depot in order to have enough buses make it out on the streets.

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/transportation/20140703_Much-needed_new_buses_for_SEPTA_behind_schedule.html

Photos has recently surfaced around Facebook showing buses around the Novabus facility in Plattsburgh New York being in various stages of completion.

Photographer Unknowned

Also, SEPTA have excised the option to have an additional thirty 60-foot buses to be delivered. The price tag is $24.2 million. These buses are set to be due here by 1st quarter 2016. It has unknown yet whether or not these will be hybrid. It should be reminded that the push to make these buses hybrids is an entirely separate request. The tentative fleet break down is as follows:

62 foot-Artic NovaBus 62102

Fleet From	Fleet To	Tentative Delivery	QTY
7300	7369	July 2014 – December 2014	70
7370	7414	January 2015 – May 2015	45
7415	7454	May 2015 – August 2015	40
7455	7484	1st Quarter 2016	30

40 foot NovaBus 40102

Fleet From	Fleet To	tentative delivery	QTY
8600	8689	August 2014 – January 2015	90

As of 12:01 this morning, the engineers and electricians whom represent the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) has strike.  As result 13 of the Regional Rail lines and also the route 78 will not operate throughout the Delaware Valley area. SEPTA has a continency plan to guide riders towards use alternative service. DART has an continency in place for the Wilmington-Newark line for Weekdays only (http://www.dartfirststate.com/newsy/septa_strike/index.shtml).  The last time when the Regional Rail went on strike was back in 1983 – that strike lasted for 104 days. Let’s hope that this strike only last for an brief period of time.