SEPTA doesn’t believe it will make Friday’s deadline to inspect its Silverliner IV railcars, but hasn’t received any indication the Federal Railroad Administration will order it to shut down Regional Rail service for failing to meet the deadline, a spokesperson said Monday.
The FRA gave SEPTA 30 days, or until Oct. 31, to complete an inspection of 223 railcars in the aftermath of five fires on the model in the Philadelphia region since February.
SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch told CBS News Philadelphia that as of Monday morning, the transit authority has inspected 95 of its fleet and returned just 30 to service.
Busch said SEPTA has crews working around the clock, averaging between eight and 10 inspections per day and making “steady, growing progress.”
“We don’t have any indication that the FRA are going to order us to shut down Regional Rail service or anything drastic like that,” Busch said. “We’ve made great progress on getting through as many of these inspections as we possibly can with our personnel and our resources. We’re going to continue with that.”
Busch said he believes the FRA has seen SEPTA’s effort in inspecting the railcars and will consider that when deciding what happens after Friday. SEPTA is waiting to hear from the federal agency about what happens after the Friday deadline, Busch said.
SEPTA has been working on securing extra cars from other transit agencies in the region, including NJ Transit and Maryland Area Rail Commuter, Busch said.
“We’re trying to see if anybody’s got any rail cars that they’re going to be decommissioning soon, or maybe if they already have some that are decommissioned,” Busch said. “We may be close to something on that. We might know a little more later this week.”
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