Ardmore Station Renovation Project advanaces into Phase B

Starting today, the old platform with the tunnel and station building has been decommissioned. The current station was built back in 1957. It’s original station was built in the 1870s!

Once all said and done, the station will have an high level platform, a new station building and If things goes to plan a parking garage for the final phase of the project.

https://www.septa.org/construction/pdf/ardmore-phase-2-2022.pdf

SEPTA to order 220 hybrid buses from New Flyer

On the October’s SEPTA Broad Agenda, it is listed that the SEPTA Broad is expected to discuss the purchase of 220 hybrid buses from New Flyer. These will replace the remainder of the 2005 (8000-8119) diesel buses as well as much of the first batch of hybrid buses which arrived in 2018 (8120-8219).

SEPTA Push Pulls sidelined

Since the middle of last week, all SEPTA Push Pulls has been sidelined from service. According to reports, the ex-Reading side [East/North of Jefferson Station] of the system has experienced issues with it’s power substations.

It is doubtful that the SEPTA Push Pulls will be sidelined for too long. After all for the past several years almost $400 million in capital expenditures and upgrades to infrastructure to aid in the support and expansion of the Push Pull fleet.

Here is the break down:

1) To upgrade the substations at least $100 million
2) Purchase of 15 ACS-64 – $154 million
3) Contract with CRRC (CRRC Corporation Limited  based in China built in Springfield, MA) to build 45 Multilevel – $138 million
4) Overhaul of 11 Push Pulls cars Contract to Rotem – $6.28 million

It has also been reported that CRRC is set to begin production on the Multilevel train cars starting this summer or fall. https://www.masslive.com/news/2021/06/crrc-factory-in-springfield-welcome-first-los-angeles-subway-cars.html

8-7-1982 – Blast from the Past – 1000 Neoplan Bus order in PA.

Been doing some research recently regarding what is next for the site – One goal is an more expanded history section. While researching around, I have found an article pertaining to the original 1000 Neoplan bus order in Pennsylvania. Here is the article. .

To sum it up, back in 1982 Pennsylvania or PennDot placed an order for 1000 Neoplan buses which came in various sizes. Each bus costed at $157K ($416K CPI – 2020) a piece on average depending on the length and features.

Here is an break down of the article:
SEPTA taken on 450 buses from this order; PAT has taken on 410. Amtran received 5, BARTA received 5, CAT received 5, CATA received 12, CCTA received 10, COLT 4, EMTA (Erie) received 30; LANTA received 20, Wilkes Barre received 17, New Castle received 12, RRTA in Lancaster received 5, Williamsport received 2, Westmoreland received 8, York received 2.

Over the next few weeks, there will be a more detailed break out as to the sizes and the final break out of the delivery.