Morning Express Regional Rail Trips Resuming Monday: SEPTA

PHILADELPHIA — SEPTA will restore all morning express trips on the Regional Rail next week after completing Federal Railroad Administration-mandated inspections and repairs on its fleet of railcars.

According to SEPTA, the morning express service will return Monday. The return of full morning express service comes as SEPTA reintroduces more Silverliner IV railcars to the tracks.

"This is a major step toward restoring normal service on Regional Rail," SEPTA General Manager Scott A. Sauer said. "The return of morning express trips will optimize all service by enabling us to more efficiently serve high-volume stations, which will reduce crowding and resulting delays and pass-ups on local trains."

SEPTA restored evening express trips in late November. However, additional railcars were needed before morning express trips could resume.

During that time period, the best option to prove as much service as possible during the morning commute was to run all service as local, meaning all trains stop at all stations.

After the mandated inspections began in early October, SEPTA converted all scheduled morning express trains to local. That totals 24 morning trips across six of SEPTA’s most heavily traveled lines, including Paoli/Thorndale, Media/Wawa, Lansdale/Doylestown, Manayunk/Norristown, Wilmington/Newark and West Trenton.

While the return of morning express trips will improve service, SEPTA is urging customers to check their timetables before heading out on Monday morning so that they know what this change will mean for them.

For some customers, certain trips that had been stopping at their stations since October will now bypass them.

Schedules are available on the SEPTA App and online here.

SEPTA is still working to finish repairs that followed the FRA-mandated inspections of the Silverliner IV fleet.

To date, repairs have been completed on 180 of the 223 50-year-old railcars, which make up about two-thirds of SEPTA’s total Regional Rail fleet.

The inspections and repairs were mandated after the National Transportation Safety Board issued an "urgent warning" regarding potential electrical fire risks among the Silverliner IV fleet.

"SEPTA has committed to enhanced inspection and maintenance routines for these aging railcars to
ensure safe and reliable service as we work through a multi-year process to purchase a replacement
fleet," Sauer said. "The railcars we have returned to service are performing extremely well, and we
expect that to continue moving forward."

SEPTA also signed an agreement with the Maryland Area Regional Commuter Rail system to lease 10 rail coach cars.