Passenger Trains > SEPTA asks for extension of FRA deadline to inspect S-IV cars

More time? SEPTA asks for extension of federal deadline to inspect aging Silverliner railcars

Less than half of SEPTA’s 50-year-old fleet of Silverliner cars have been inspected. And out of 108 inspected cars, only 35 have returned to service.

WHYY

Tom MacDonald
October 29, 2025


SEPTA is running out of time to meet the end-of-the-week deadline to inspect its older Silverliner IV railcars.

Earlier this month, the National Transportation Safety Board warned SEPTA to take action following a series of fires involving the 50-year-old railcars this year. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued an emergency order for SEPTA to inspect the trains, adding that “failure to comply” with the Federal Railroad Administration’s order could lead to “increased oversight of the system at the federal level.”

Now, just days before that deadline, SEPTA is requesting a two-week extension to finish the inspections.
(Now only one day...article is two days old)

“We had expected that we were going to have to do this in order to complete the inspections,” said SEPTA’s Andrew Busch. “We’ve been talking with the FRA throughout this process.”

Out of 223 Silverliner cars, inspections have been completed on 108.

“We’ve been happy with the progress we’ve made so far,” Busch said. “We’re getting through an average of about eight cars a day. So, it’s been a good rate of completion for these inspections.”

The federally mandated inspections of SEPTA’s Silverliner trains come after several fires. New sensors will be added to warn of a possible fire.

Out of those cars that have been inspected, about two-thirds have failed and only 35 have been returned to service.

If the two-week extension is granted, Busch believes the inspections can be completed in that time frame. They expect to have a decision by the end of the week.

Because SEPTA crews have focused on getting through inspecting as many cars as possible, repairs have not yet started on the trains that failed inspection. Once inspections are complete, repairs will begin.

“Most of those cars have some minor repairs that we’re going to do before they get back into service,” he said. “Those haven’t been major safety-related repairs, but you know, we go in and find an old component that needs to be replaced or something needs to be upgraded, something that we would find in our normal inspections. We’re going to go ahead and replace that before it goes back into service.”

SEPTA’s current timetable would put the rail fleet back at full strength around the end of December or the beginning of January.

SEPTA said it will postpone buying new buses, upgrades to the Bristol Regional Rail Station and a new facility at its Frazer Railroad site.

In the meantime, the loss of those cars on the rails has caused big delays for passengers. SEPTA is currently in negotiations to find replacement train cars that could be purchased or leased affordably.

“We don’t have anything finalized yet, but we’ve talked to several agencies, including MARC in Maryland, New Jersey Transit and some others, to see if there’s some railcars that we might be able to either lease or buy that will help add to the fleet that we have available,” he said.

https://whyy.org/articles/septa-silverliner-railcars-inspections/
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/31/25 18:29 by GenePoon.

2/3 of those inspected have failed

That isn't a good prognosis...

Posted from Android

time to bring in outside help- no matter what.

Not a good prognosis at all, especially since the S-IVs make up a significant share of the Septa RRD fleet. It will be interesting to see which railroads lend equipment to Septa. Perhaps MARC is a likely candidate. Not sure yet about NJT-unfortunately a lot of their rolling stock isn’t that reliable. The Arrow IIIs are tired and have been awaiting their retirement for some time.

Posted from iPhone

SEPTA granted extension to finish inspecting Silverliner IV railcars after series of fires

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- The Federal Railroad Administration has granted SEPTA a two-week extension to complete inspections of its aging Silverliner IV Regional Rail fleet, following a series of fires that raised safety concerns. SEPTA now has until Nov. 14 to finish inspecting its 223 Silverliner IV railcars. The original deadline was Oct. 31. 

More: https://6abc.com/post/federal-railroad-administration-grants-septa-extension-complete-silverliner-iv-inspections/18096044/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/31/25 18:30 by GenePoon.

if they are inspecting 8 cars daily, and Septa has 14 more days, that would be 112 cars inspected. At current rates that would be about 37 cars added to the fleet.  Not an insignificant number, but nowhere near what's needed.

I hope some of the flunked cars can be brought into compliance quickly.

My uderstanding was that cars that were having issues out on th road were brought in 1st, so the failure rate of the remaining cars should hopefully be less. 
AFAIK, the cars were not pulled from service..they just needed to be inspected, ad the order was out that if a crew had a car that had issues, to report it and it would be pulled from service for inspection. 
Hoping for the best for septa.  Funding in the state of PA has always been difficult.   

What constitutes a defect that would cause a fire and how do they fix it ?