Author: van2025ko

This afternoon, the National Transportation Safety Board has issued a stern warning to SEPTA. These warnings were the direct result of five fires which occured on the Silverliner IVs this year alone. Back in August, SEPTA withdrawn many of the Silverliner IVs from service due to mechincal issues. Things seemed to be progressing however due to a more recent fire in Fort Washington and Philadelphia, the NTSB has issued a urgent recommendation.

https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20251001.aspx

Per the the NTSB

“The NTSB concluded that the outdated design of the Silverliner IV railcars, in combination with SEPTA’s maintenance and operating practices, represents an immediate and unacceptable safety risk because of the incidence and severity of electrical fires that can spread to occupied compartments. Additionally, the NTSB found that the risks posed by the design cannot be fully addressed without an extensive fleet retrofit or replacement.”

The NTSB recommends that SEPTA Suspends operation of the Silverliner IV fleet until the cause of the fires are determined and remedy.

https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20251001.aspx

The NTSB also recommends that SEPTA establish an expedited procurement or retrofit schedule. To put this into context, SEPTA has recently faced significant fiscal challenges. The agency reported a $213 million operating budget deficit, which led to service cuts on August 24, 2025, followed by fare increases on September 1. In late August, a lawsuit was filed against SEPTA, and the outcome permitted the agency to raise fares but not cut service. Service was restored a couple of weeks ago.

To cover the shortfall, it was recommended that SEPTA draw from the PTTF fund. What is the PTTF? It is the Pennsylvania Public Transportation Trust Fund, which is intended for capital projects such as new equipment procurement. With that fund being tapped and no additional state legislative approval for more funding, SEPTA’s options are now very limited.

SEPTA’s response is

“Following a fire in February 2025, SEPTA worked with FRA and NTSB to develop a comprehensive set of 40 mitigation measures. SEPTA has made progress on a range of initiatives from additional notifications and safety checks to audible alarms for fault lights. Rail Operations has also adjusted vehicle usage to reduce hours of service on these aging cars. Due to these efforts, SEPTA is confident that by working hand-in-hand with FRA and NTSB, we can safely continue service with the Silverliner IV fleet.  “

https://wwww.septa.org/news/ntsb-report-silverliner-iv-trains

SEPTA has started listing the Proterras for Sale on Govdeals.

These buses were sidelined back in 2020 due to cracking in the bus chassis and other defects, including poor performance and insufficient battery range. The buses sit at Southern for several years until they were moved to Midvale. Earlier this year, a major fire broken out at Midvale scrap yard due to the batteries on one caughting on fire.

https://www.govdeals.com/en/asset/688/10293

On June 6, Midvale scrap yard, used for storing decommished buses, experienced a fire. The cause of the fire was the battery unit of an Proterra bus which caught on fire. As reported back in December, these buses were moved from Southern to this lot. Thankfully no injuries were reported. 40 buses in total were damanged as result.
More Recently, most of the buses which were located near the Proterras were relocated away. To prevent further contamination, sand or dirt was placed around these buses.

On Friday, May 30th, SEPTA debuted several fuel cell buses of their fleet of 10 buses. These fuel cell buses are quite similar in appearance to the buses which are already in service. These were ordered back in 2023 when the SEPTA Board approved a contract for the purchase of 10 fuel cell electric buses (FCEBs) made by New Flyer.

As reported last year, these buses arrived on the property and since underwent acceptance and training. Also temporary infrastructure has been installed at Midvale to accommodate for the fuel cell/Hydrogen technology. There were rumors floating out there that these initially failed acceptance tests but rest assured these are now being slowly phased into service.

The Fuel Cell buses are apart of SEPTA’s clean air initiatives. These buses are assigned out of the Midvale district and are expected to operate on the route 23. Thus far, several buses (703, 704, 708) has been spotted in revenue service. The fleet numbers for the entire order are 700-709 – so be on the look out.

To track them (if they’re out there)

The majority, if not all, of the Proterra electric buses operated by SEPTA have been sent to the Midvale Scrap Yard. These buses were plagued by a series of persistent issues since their initial deployment in 2019. In early 2020, these were sidelined and never entered full revenue service.

Problems encountered with the Proterra fleet included:

• Battery Issues: Frequent battery failures and charging difficulties significantly impacted the buses’ operational reliability.
• Frame Issues: Structural problems with the bus frames raised concerns about safety and vehicle integrity.
• Other Technical Problems: The buses experienced a range of other technical malfunctions, further hindering their ability to provide consistent service.

It’s unknown what the long term fate of these will be but rest assure these will not go back into service any time soon. There were some rumors or speculation going around that some of these would be overhauled however I wouldn’t count on them. It would be interesting to see what gets earmarked into SEPTA’s FY 2027 Captial budget moving forth.

So recently I have been digging through some of my older files and found a responsitory of older SEPTA Annual Service plans for the ones which I have available. These date back to 1996 to 2021.

1996-2010	2011-2021
1996 ASP	2011
1997 ASP	2012
1998 ASP	2013
1999 ASP	2014
2001 ASP	2015
2002 ASP	2016
2003 ASP	2017
2005 ASP	2018
2006	2019
2007	2020
2008	2021
2009
2010

Anyways since SEPTA has cancelled this year’s holiday event. I wanna share my collection of photos. These were taken back in 2017.

It comes as no surprise that the SEPTA Holiday bus event is not happening this year. SEPTA posted on social media that this is due to the budget shortfall. Yet again the shortfall claimed another annual event. The first major event which was cancelled was the rail rodeo cancelled back in October. Hopefully next year when or if SEPTA gets funding, these events would be held once again. But for now we can only hope that cooler heads would prevail in Harrisburg.

As of today here is the current status of the new bus deliveries being diligently tracked by the transit enthusiast community.

Here is the current retirements: