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SEPTA is renting 10 commuter railcars from Maryland to help ease shortages bedeviling Regional Rail

The rentals will sub for SEPTA Silverliner IV cars undergoing repairs and safety inspections. SEPTA also is soliciting bids for new Regional Rail cars.

SEPTA is leasing passenger rail cars from MARC, which ferries commuters from suburbs in Maryland and West Virginia to Washington. Here MARC trains are seen in the yard at Union Station in the nation's capital.
SEPTA is leasing passenger rail cars from MARC, which ferries commuters from suburbs in Maryland and West Virginia to Washington. Here MARC trains are seen in the yard at Union Station in the nation's capital.Read moreBill O'Leary / The Washington Post

SEPTA has reached an agreement to lease 10 passenger coaches from Maryland’s commuter railroad, adding capacity to help ease the shortages now wrecking Regional Rail schedules.

For the last month or so, Regional Rail trains have been canceled, delayed, and often overcrowded as SEPTA works to finish emergency safety inspections of its 223 Silverliner IV cars, which date to the Nixon administration.

It will cost $22,000 a month to lease each of the coaches from the MARC Train Service — or about $2.6 million over the one-year term of the agreement, SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch said.

“We’ll utilize them in the ways they’ll most help the service,” he said.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation gave SEPTA permission to use capital funds to lease the MARC vehicles rather than dip into operating funds, Busch said. The rental will be accounted for in the 2026-27 fiscal year budget.

In another development, the Philadelphia region’s mass-transit agency issued a request for proposals last week to solicit bids from manufacturers for new railcars. Offers are due April 10.

Ordering new cars is, of course, not an immediate salve to frazzled commuters.

» READ MORE: Regional Rail woes

SEPTA is on track, however, to meet Friday’s deadline to finish the inspections, which were ordered by the Federal Railroad Administration after five Silverliner IVs were involved in fires from February through September.

As of Wednesday, inspections were finished on 210 Silverliner IVs, or 94% of the fleet, and 73 of the cars have been returned to Regional Rail service.

But for the third straight day, 22 trains were canceled ahead of the morning commute on the Airport, Fox Chase, and Chestnut Hill West lines.

“By the end of the year, we’ll be in a much better position to return to some semblance of normalcy on the system,” SEPTA general manager Scott A. Sauer said in an interview. He said customers should see gradual improvement throughout November.

The leased cars will be hauled by electric locomotives, Busch said. MARC’s cars are not self-propelled like the Silverliner IV and V models used on Regional Rail.

SEPTA has 15 electric locomotives and some passenger coaches without motors, used in normal times mostly for express service.

Next “we’re going to put a plan together to overhaul [Silverliner IV] cars,” Sauer said. “We need to make them last another six to 10 years.”

By that time, new vehicles should be arriving in Philadelphia.