Category: Uncategorized

As of December 26th 2005, SEPTA has completed the project what entitles the installation of traffic light sensors which has been placed above most of there buses. These sensors will keep the light green at 15 intersections. This also includes the major intersection at 52nd and Lancaster Ave. SEPTA hope that these systems will minimize the number of delays and to improve the flow of traffic along 52nd street. You can learn more about these features from here http://www.septa.org/travel_advisory/route52.pdf.

Just wanted to wish everybody a happy and safe New Year.

Apparently what was heard in the beginning is coming true. Southern now has the possession of NABIs from Comly (5351-5358, 5360) and Red Arrow (5367, 5371-5372). These buses were apparently swapped from the depots when Southern sent 5471-5472, 5474-5476, 5478-5480 to Comly and 5653-5655 to Red Arrow. It looks as though 50 NABIs will get ULSD conversions after all. It looks as though from the standpoint now Southern will have in the end 5351-5400 (50), 5481-5500 (20), 5596-5600 (5), 5601H-5612H (12), 5831H-5850H (20), and 8000-8119 (120). This is only a preliminary observation and things WILL change as the delivery and putting in service of new buses continues. Stay tuned to this space and the Current Assignments page on this site for more details.

According to the SEPTA Bid webpage, SEPTA is currently
taking bids for the purchase LED destination signs for it’s
Norristown Line ABB N5 cars which currently uses paper signs
to display route information (

http://www.septa.org/business/over25000/bid12155A.html
). SEPTA has had LED Signs built into it’s buses manufactured
from 2000 up as well and has retrofitted a handful of other
buses with the signs but only for various test. This
retrofit will be the first for it’s Rail Fleet, and also the
first mass destination sign retrofit in SEPTA’s fleet.

A number of Southern’s 5400 Series D40LFs have been transferred to Comly do to the 8000 Series arrival. So far 5471-5472, 5474-5476, and 5478-5480 have been spotted operating on Comly routes.

In the Early Morning hours of Friday November 18th, bus #5349 a NABI, was involved in a major accident which sent three people (including the driver) to the hospital. The accident occurred on Front st between Packer and Pattison Avenues when the bus struck the trailer of a semi backing out of the Food Distribution Center. As a result, 5349 suffered ‘Major Damage’; with the front literally caved in. Despite the severity of the accident there were no life threatening injuries to the driver or passengers.

Due to the arrival of the 2005 New Flyers solely to southern. A bunch of the 2003 new flyers and NABI’s at southern has been moved to the Midvale facilities. Thus far far 5613-5615,5617- 5621, and 5626 has been moved to Midvale. It’s unclear how many of the 5613-5656 batch of 2003 new flyers could be moved there to replace the Midvale’s NABIs. Furthermore, there are only 50 of the 2005 New flyers has arrived there are still as many as 70 new flyers left to be delivered. As per latest trends several of the 2001 New Flyers (5471-5500) Assigned at Southern and possibly the 2002 (5596-5600) are running off of ULSD diesel fuel or in stages of an retrofit to run off of this fuel. Within respect to this it appears those units will be staying at the Southern facilities.

Due to the deliveries of the 8000 series low floor buses exclusively at Southern which stands at 39 units. The bus management at SEPTA has moved several of the 2003 New Flyers aka the 56xx units to Midvale; therefore, so that the Neoplan bus fleets at Midvale could face retirements. It’s very skeptical how many units have been moved to Midvale, however the ones that were spotted were 5614-5617 operating on Midvale routes. It could be possible that Midvale could receive 5613-5620, this however has yet to be determined.

Pressure from Governor Ed Rendell and other elected officials has yielded a tentative agreement for both UTU 1594 and TWU 234 members. The agreement was announced by Rendell yesterday around 5:30AM. Around that time some transit service began to run. The MFSE and BSL began limited 15 minute local service around 6:45 AM. By the afternoon rush hour all rail service was back on line and all bus routes were up and running however there were many missing trips. One report states that Neoplan 40 footers were not used yesterday because they had so much trouble starting them up. Details of the contract agreement released yesterday state that it is a 4 year contract with 3% raises each year and all employees will pay 1% of their salary towards healthcare. The only reason union members agreed to pay healthcare was because management will also now pay for their healthcare. Had management not agreed to that this strike would be prolonged. Today (Tuesday) all service was running at or near normal levels and the number of missed trips went back to that of an average weekday.

The talks between the unions and SEPTA has ceased until a state mediator will get involved.  As result of the strike over 400,000 people in the area has no choice but to choose other means of transportation such as car pooling; while others took the Rgional Rail lines. Let’s hope this strike will get resolved as soon as possible.
Here is the page off of SEPTA’s website that shows the services running during this  strike.
http://www.septa.org/news/SIP/running.htm