News

According to Front5151 on our forums, 8341 has just arrived at Germantown depot. It finally looks like that the order DE40LFR has finally begun. This will be be the first order of DE40LF-restyles to be placed in service. According to several posts on the board, roughly 20 of these units will go to Victory.

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (April 12th, 13th, and 14th) the married pair of Silverliner Vs will be on display at Suburban Station.  You will be able to access 801 and 802 on Track 0 between the hours of 11AM to 6PM.

Capital Area Transit (CAT) of Harrisburg, PA has recently purchased several American Ikarus buses from SEPTA.  They were purchased about four months ago and were put into service his past week.  So far five buses are confirmed to be at or heading to Harrisburg.  They are being numbered in the 9600 series representing the year of the bus.  They are 5035 (9602), 5042 (9603), 5061 (9604), and 5073 (9605), with 5194 due to arrive in mid May.  It is not known at this time whether legendary SEPTA employee Tom Collins who works at CAT was involved in this purchase or not. 

For more information, see the thread in our forums, http://philadelphiatransitforums.cjb.net/topic/7199852/1/ .

TMA Bucks has just rolled out its new twitter page for updates on the rushbus service.   Check it out: www.twitter.com/rushbus.

First it was TrainView, which was an huge success, now it’s BusViewer. SEPTA has finally rolled out this cool new online tool called BusViewer. It basically gives their customers an up-to-the-minute status on where the buses are at on the route. It only supports two routes (33 and 109) for the time being. Admittedly, not all buses on the route are showing up! This system has a lot of potential. Hopefully would serve as an excellent customer service tool in the future.

 http://septa.org/service/bus/busview.html

 http://philadelphiatransitforums.cjb.net/topic/7196317/1/#new

Earlier this week, Elizabeth Mintz, the communications director of SEPTA, reported to the Citizens Advisory Committee that the Regional Rail “R” designators will be ELIMINATED starting July 25th, 2010.  Instead, the lines will be named by their terminus, similar to the way that the general line destinations are posted today.  The only exception will be the R6 Norristown line, which SEPTA will rename the Manayunk/Norristown line, since Manayunk is a primary destination on the line.

Along with the elimination of the “Rs”, the line colors will disappear as well.  Instead, all lines will be represented in the typical Regional Rail gray that you find on the maps and signs downtown today.

This is part of SEPTA’s customer service initiative, an effort to make the system easier to understand for occasional and first time riders.  For more details on this particular change, view the following article at PlanPhilly.com: http://planphilly.com/regional-rail-numbers-will-go-away-july-25

As mention yesterday, the demo of the 2010 order of hybrid was on display yesterday at 1234 Market St. The design of the bus is extremely new to the New Flyer Market.

Photographer: Buswizard

As shown in the photos, the roof cap is now one panel, and lights at the rear are completely designed. Much different then what’s currently available on the New Flyer units.

 

The interior seating on the pilot is the latest American Seating model. This model is much more similar to the USSC model seating on the 2004-2009 units of SEPTA’s New Flyers. It has been reported that this seating model will not be on the production units. The production units will receive the USSC model seating. 

According to Ctrabs, the first of the units will arrive at Victory first to operate on the route 101 and 102 as bus shuttles. Delivery is set to begin next month.

What a way to wrap up an already interesting week. You can find info in this topic: http://philadelphiatransitforums.cjb.net/topic/7191014/1/

SEPTA's new Silverliner V pilot cars (701, 801 and 802) finally arrived at Philadelphia's Packer Terminal on Sunday, February 28th. They are headed for Roberts Yard, where they will go under significant testing.  It's also important to note that while the specifications were changed so that the production cards will have full width cabs, these pilot cars have half cabs for now.

These pilot cars came with 9 Silverliner V shells, which will be used at the Philadelphia-based Hyundai-Rotem plant for more railcars.

SEPTA posted a nice little write up about the Silverliner Vs here.  You can also find a few photos at railroad.net, including a shotof 801 next to Silverliner II #256 in the shop.

Finally…the first new Silverliners that SEPTA has ordered in my 23 years of life on this earth have arrived!

Tritransit Recorder has added many photos of the buses operated by Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority to the Photo Gallary on the site.

http://www.philadelphiatransitvehicles.info/multimedia/index-26.html

Folks, get your cameras ready. As reported on SEPTA Watch, the ship carrying the three pilot cars is set to arrive in Philadelphia tomorrow. An observation which I've received earlier today. The WLADYSLAW ORKAN, the ship carrying these three cars, is moving up the Delaware river as we speak. As it stands now, everything is on time for a change. Once the ship arrives at the Navel yard, these three cars will be transported to Wayne Electric in Nicetown. At Wayne Electric, these cars will undergo familiarization training by managers and the engineers.

Finally!!
[Photo taken by Transit Freak]