See inside SEPTA’s efforts to inspect Regional Rail cars that keep catching fire

The 50-year-old electronic guts of a Silverliner IV Regional Rail car spilled from a bottom compartment, a technician choosing from an array of tools to perform exploratory surgery Thursday at SEPTA’s Overbrook shop.

High above, a worker in a white moon suit paced the car’s roof, inspecting resistors that regulate the voltage and current of the electricity drawn from overhead catenary wires for propulsion.

The transit agency is rushing to inspect the electrical components of 225 Silverliner IVs from bottom to top by month’s end — working under an emergency order by the Federal Railroad Administration after five train fires of undetermined cause this year.

“This probably is our new reality for a while,” SEPTA general manager Scott Sauer told reporters, “for as long as we have these cars.”

In addition to the enhanced inspections, SEPTA is pulling cars off the line anytime an engineer reports a glowing fault-indicator light.

With cars undergoing inspections in SEPTA’s four regional maintenance facilities, trains have been shorter than usual, leading to overcrowding and delayed or canceled trips, frustrating riders.

Commuters confronted huge delays and a number of cancellations again late Thursday afternoon, some the result of power outages. Officials say the Silverliner IV inspections limit SEPTA’s ability to deal with typical delays.

As of midday Thursday, SEPTA had completed the intense inspections on 12 cars, according to Greg Buzby, manager of Regional Rail vehicle engineering.

“We’re looking for any signs of overheating or damage to any of the circuits, physical damage, making sure the bolted connections are tight,” Buzby said. “There’s also electrical testing that we have to do to make sure the insulation has its integrity.”

The process began Monday night, and crews can handle about six Silverliner IV cars a day at this point, he said, with a goal of ramping up inspections to handle 12 cars a day with five-person crews per car.

The Silverliner IVs went into service between 1974 and 1976, with technology that was designed even before that time.

Neither the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating, nor SEPTA itself has found the precise cause or causes of the fires. The first car of a Wilmington-bound train caught fire Feb. 6 as it pulled out of Crum Lynne Station in Delaware County.

Four other Silverliner IVs later caught fire, the NTSB said — in Levittown on June 3, in Paoli on July 22, in Fort Washington on Sept. 23, and in the city on Sept. 25.

Passengers were evacuated in all five incidents, with minor injuries reported.

Noting that the Silverliner IV cars’ “outdated design … represents an immediate and unacceptable safety risk,” the NTSB urged SEPTA to sideline all the Silverliner cars immediately and to retrofit or replace them as soon as possible.

The NTSB’s findings are advisory. The FRA, which regulates freight and passenger railroads, ordered SEPTA to undertake the inspections but stopped short of saying the agency needed to remove them all at once.

“The pattern of failures persuades [the Federal Railroad Administration] that reliance alone upon the prior assurances and cooperation of SEPTA is not possible, nor in the interest of public safety,” said the emergency order, which was published in the Federal Register on Monday.

So far, the enhanced inspections have turned up a lot of normal wear and tear but “nothing eyebrow-raising” that might indicate a solution to the mystery, Buzby said.

The 1970s technology in the train cars has helped in a way because SEPTA engineers and personnel have been able to keep them going by performing intensive maintenance and rebuilding parts as needed.

“You can rebuild the components that, with modern-day electronics, you can’t,” Buzby said. “You can’t take your iPhone and take it apart and fix it, but this technology because of its general simplicity … we’re able to maintain it and take it out there.”

Meanwhile, Sauer said, SEPTA is shopping for surplus commuter rail cars to buy or lease from other transportation agencies around the country to help out as it prepares to buy new ones.

NJ Transit, for instance, has 90 remaining Silverliner IVs that are in good shape. It plans to replace them next year. In 2016, when there were problems with cracked axles on some of the newer Silverliner V cars, SEPTA leased some from MARC, Maryland’s commuter rail.

Replacement of the Silverliner IVs would cost about $2 billion and take about 10 years, Sauer said. New vehicles have to be designed and tested on the system, and then are delivered in batches.

He apologized to riders for the inconvenience but could not say how long disruptions may continue, though he hopes that as more cars are cleared after inspections, things will improve.

“We don’t just have a job to do. We have an obligation to our customers to put out the best and safest product possible,” Sauer said.

“There’s no ‘we should do it,’ or ‘we could do it,’” he said. “We must do it, and … we can’t fall down on the job.”