SEPTA Silverliner Woes

[Green_Elite_Cab]

BRING BACK THE BUDD CARS!

Oh wait... to late....

I think there is one St. Louis car co Silverliner III hanging around due to a lawsuit. Maybe that thing can still run!

Apparently, the Denver RTD Silverliner Vs don't have this problem-

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://billypenn.com/2016/07/06/why-denvers-silverliner-v-cars-still-run-while-septa-pulled-phillys-off-the-tracks/">http://billypenn.com/2016/07/06/why-den ... he-tracks/</a><!-- m -->

The Denver Regional Transportation District employs 60 Silverliner V cars. As of now, all of them are still in service, and RTD has no plans to pull them out.

“Our engineers have been carefully inspecting them since we heard about what happened in Philadelphia,” said RTD spokesperson Nate Currey.

“We have a slightly different model,” he continued, using an airline industry analogy. “It’s kind of like comparing a Boeing 737-500 to a 737-900er.”

One difference is weight: RTD’s cars are 5,000 lbs. lighter than SEPTA’s (which ended up 10,000 lbs. over-budget because of last-minute changes to meet new crashworthy standards put out by the Federal Railroad Administration).

A second distinction is in the equalizer bar itself.

“Our equalizer bars were machined flat, to prevent them from gathering water,” Currey said, “so I believe they were attached with a different style of welding.”

Additionally, there were various small changes to multiple parts of the general design to accommodate RTDs specific needs. Instead of having platforms at multiple levels like SEPTA, all of the Denver commuter rail platforms are at exactly the same height. The ultra-modern railway, which just came online this spring, was the first local transit built from the ground up to incorporate Positive Train Control — the automated system that helps avoid high-speed crashes and derailments — so that also induced some design tweaks, Currey said.

All of the above could be relevant to why Denver isn’t worried about SEPTA’s current issue.