07-03-2016, 01:27 PM
Friday evening July 1st one of the newer Silverliner V cars was seen leaning as compared to her sister car. SEPTA cars always travel in pairs or more linked together. This was a good thing, since it was noticed early.
After a few hours of trail and error, it was found (early Saturday morning) that the Equalizer Beam Plate on one truck had a crack that failed and the 2 pieces fortunately wedged together. This could have caused a derailment at high speeds.
They immediately began inspecting all the "bends" in all the trucks of all the cars that were in the shops for normal service.... they found more stress cracks. They ordered all the remaining Silverliner V cars to operate at reduced speed and to report to the repair shops. There are 8 of these bends (Where the springs rest) on the trucks, 4 per truck, 8 per car. It takes 1/2 hour to 45 minutes to visually inspect each car. They have worked around the clock and have inspected approximately 100 cars as of 2:00 Sunday July 3rd.
Most have stress cracks!! They are still under warranty and SEPTA is petitioning Hyundai (lowest bidder out of 4) to investigate the manufacturing process and honor the warranty. They are also asking NJ Transit and Amtrak for help in borrowing cars and rail clearance for rush hours beginning Tuesday the 5th.
This is 1/3 of the SEPTA fleet and it will have a huge impact on travel in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs. Here is a link to the story:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://6abc.com/traffic/septa-1-3-of-regional-rail-fleet-going-out-of-service-/1411365/">http://6abc.com/traffic/septa-1-3-of-re ... -/1411365/</a><!-- m -->
Technical items:
~~ The cracks are supposedly due to a weld between 2 sections that were manufactured at 2 different places and brought together for assembly where they were welded.
~~ They are trying to determine what could have caused the fractures.
~~ The actual fractures are cumulative stress fractures at the weld.
~~ They are small, hairline cracks on either side of the beam. So they can start anywhere near the weld and progressively grow since these are weight (spring) bearing beams.
~~ NTSB and the Railroad Safety Board of the Federal Railroad Administration have been notified (as per regulations)
~~ The SEPTA Board of Directors are fully supportive of the decision to sideline all 120 cars.
~~ Some of the trucks are being switched around so that some cars have 2 good trucks so they could be put into service Tuesday, but this is a very low number of cars.
More to come as the news gets updated!!!!!
(Some of the above information was from a press conference held at 2:00 pm today)
After a few hours of trail and error, it was found (early Saturday morning) that the Equalizer Beam Plate on one truck had a crack that failed and the 2 pieces fortunately wedged together. This could have caused a derailment at high speeds.
They immediately began inspecting all the "bends" in all the trucks of all the cars that were in the shops for normal service.... they found more stress cracks. They ordered all the remaining Silverliner V cars to operate at reduced speed and to report to the repair shops. There are 8 of these bends (Where the springs rest) on the trucks, 4 per truck, 8 per car. It takes 1/2 hour to 45 minutes to visually inspect each car. They have worked around the clock and have inspected approximately 100 cars as of 2:00 Sunday July 3rd.
Most have stress cracks!! They are still under warranty and SEPTA is petitioning Hyundai (lowest bidder out of 4) to investigate the manufacturing process and honor the warranty. They are also asking NJ Transit and Amtrak for help in borrowing cars and rail clearance for rush hours beginning Tuesday the 5th.
This is 1/3 of the SEPTA fleet and it will have a huge impact on travel in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs. Here is a link to the story:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://6abc.com/traffic/septa-1-3-of-regional-rail-fleet-going-out-of-service-/1411365/">http://6abc.com/traffic/septa-1-3-of-re ... -/1411365/</a><!-- m -->
Technical items:
~~ The cracks are supposedly due to a weld between 2 sections that were manufactured at 2 different places and brought together for assembly where they were welded.
~~ They are trying to determine what could have caused the fractures.
~~ The actual fractures are cumulative stress fractures at the weld.
~~ They are small, hairline cracks on either side of the beam. So they can start anywhere near the weld and progressively grow since these are weight (spring) bearing beams.
~~ NTSB and the Railroad Safety Board of the Federal Railroad Administration have been notified (as per regulations)
~~ The SEPTA Board of Directors are fully supportive of the decision to sideline all 120 cars.
~~ Some of the trucks are being switched around so that some cars have 2 good trucks so they could be put into service Tuesday, but this is a very low number of cars.
More to come as the news gets updated!!!!!
(Some of the above information was from a press conference held at 2:00 pm today)
It's funny and sad at the same time.
collectively they have a bunch of issues... Also, from that RTD article, I wonder if SEPTA is covering a 3 year warranty, saying it's a 7 year warranty. 
![[Image: 0705SEPTA-2.jpg]](http://media.philly.com/images/1200*800/0705SEPTA-2.jpg)