oday there has been some major power outages on the Amtrak’s Northeast corridor reflecting in massive delays throughout the rush hour this morning. Shuttle buses were being put into service to give the SEPTA’s commenter rail lines to substitution for these delays. As of 11am power has been restored on these lines.
Numerous New Flyer BRT Demo sightings
The New Flyer 40 foot demo BRT has been spotted at 1234 Market St, Frankford Frankford transportation center, and also in West Chester. It is unclear as to exactly what SEPTA is using this bus for but it seems likely they are using them to run tests on them. Adam Moreira managed to get the photo of the BRT demo at Frankford terminal. You could check them out here…
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New Flyer Demo in Center City
According to Creighton Rabs, a New Flyer DE40LF demo painted LACMTA-style orange with the new redesigned front appeared in Center City today. It is believed that this bus was being shown off to SEPTA officials to persuade SEPTA to go back to New Flyer for the next bus order to replace the American Ikarus and NABI 416.08TA fleet which dates back to 1996-1997. The replacements will be delivered in batches of 100 starting in 2008 with options in each year.
Temporary Fix
Over the past 2 months SEPTA’s in-house forces have been making much needed upgrades to the Broad Street Subway’s City Hall Station. The upgrades include the repainting of the station, New brighter lighting, and a new platform surfacing to provide better “traction”. These are temporary repairs which will hold the station over a little longer until a major reconstruction and modernization of the station can be done. Currently the reconstruction project is in the design phase and isn’t scheduled until 2009.
Bus Repainting
Recently, SEPTA has started a practice of repainting buses on a regular basis. When buses are in for routine maintenance, some are set aside and sent to the paint shop. Many of these buses, particularly the New Flyer fleet not going through overhaul, are being repainted into various variations of the standard SEPTA red to blue fade away paint. 5589 recently returned from being repainted and show many odd variations of the paint scheme. The numbers were in a different font than the rest of the SEPTA fleet and like 5851, the front stripe has more red than blue. 5589, along with 5570, also have purple on the rear stripe. These variations are not occurring to the 5400 series New Flyers going through overhaul, however. These buses are getting the correct paint scheme.
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As described, 5589 features numbers in a font that appears to be Arial Narrow and purple made its way onto the SEPTA stripe on the front and rear as well as on the sides if you look close enough. Photos by Joe Butler.
Bus Accident
This morning at 11th and South Streets in Center
City, Callowhill 5009 was operating an eastbound
Route 40 trip when a car driven by a pregnant
woman ran a red light while traveling north on
11th Street. The car broadsided 5009,
forcing it into a CVS Drug Store. Although
it sounds much worse than it really was, there
was no major damage to the building and 5009
appears to have only suffered minor damage.
For more information,
click here.
New Gillig Advantage in Philly
An Gillig low floor was spotted today on 22nd street turning left onto Market Street; it appears that ether the Philadelphia trolley works or some other company has managed to get some funds in place to buy this bus. It’s a pretty nice looking bus with the designation sign being more likely a Twinvision NA amber to say “2401 Pennsylvania” with the change that says “Philadelphia” on it. The bus sounds like it has a Cummins ISL engine. The Gillig Advantage does indeed has a pretty nice scheme on it with text on the back that says “The Philadelphian”. Perhaps its a replacement of a bluebird fleet that runs in that area… We will pass more details when it becomes available.
Yet the New Jersey transit fleet of MCI’s expands yet again
During the course of 1996-2003, New Jersey transit has purchases over 1000 40 foot version & 45 foot versions of the MCI. Earlier this year New Jersey transit has decided to purchase 53 coaches of the D4500 (45 foot version) for both commuter and lease operations with the fleet numbers of #9001-9053. Unlike their previous counterparts, New Jersey has accepted the option to have the Caterpillar C-13 engine on these units. Also another new feature is these units will feature Orange LED signs as well. All of these units will be delivered in North Jersey.
Route 100 Troubles
According to the SEPTA website, as of 6:00 PM this evening, Route 100 Hughes Park service is suspended due to emergency platform repairs at 69th Street. There is no further information on what happened but this probably means one of the 3 tracks is Out of service and only 2 tracks are available. Around 3:30 PM today, service on Route 100 was operating normally. Thorns to the SEPTA Website Maintainers for placing on the Subway and trolley travel advisories that Route 101 service to Hughes Park is suspended. Norristown rail vehicles will continue to stop at Hughes Park station in both directions.
Rust in Peices
4539, the Eldorado which caught fire in June of 2004 while operating on the old Route 116 on the property of Neumann College, has officially been scrapped despite the fact that it is still listed for VOH and is still on the Victory check list. According to Darryl Bulls, 4539 was moved to the Midvale Scrap Yard several weeks ago after the fire damage was determined to be beyond repair. The fire melted the entire rear of the bus from the backmost window back including the engine. The back of the seating area can be seen from the outside of the rear of the bus due to the heavy damage. 4539 is officially the first Eldorado to be scrapped, leaving 79 in the fleet. 4539 joins countless Neoplans, Volvo 7036, American Ikarus 5155, NABI 5267, and Cutaways 2003, 2007, 2008, and 2009 in being scrapped long before the rest of their counterparts.