SEPTA Silverliner V railcars debut

The first of SEPTA's new, long-awaited Silverliner V passenger railcars made their inaugural revenue trip Friday morning, carrying SEPTA officials, invited guests, and a handful of paying customers.

Making its choreographed entrance 10 minutes late, the three-car train broke through a paper banner stretched across 0 Track at Suburban Station to the cheers of riders and SEPTA workers.

SEPTA general manager Joseph Casey said the first of the 120 new cars marked the beginning of "a new era" for SEPTA service.

Surprised passenger Mounya Sabri, 22, of Center City, who got on the train at 30th Street for her usual morning commute to her paralegal job in Bala Cynwyd, was impressed: "This looks nice. It smells nice. The old cars were really old and in bad shape. I like this a lot better."

SEPTA ordered 120 of the Silverliner V cars, at a cost of $274 million. Production delays repeatedly have pushed back delivery of the cars, and SEPTA officials now hope to have all of the cars in service by the end of 2011.

The first three production cars will be delivered next month and three more by the end of December, said Sean S. Shim, assistant project engineer for Hyundai-Rotem Corp., the manufacturer of the cars.

The new cars, with state-of-the-art air-conditioning and heating systems and wide mid-car doors to speed boardings, are being built in South Korea with final assembly at a plant on Weccacoe Avenue in South Philadelphia.

The new Silverliners will replace 73 railcars built for SEPTA in the 1960s. With the retirement of the old cars and the addition of the 120 new ones, SEPTA is to have about 400 railcars by the end of 2011.