SEPTA is buying 24 surplus Bombardier Comet passenger rail cars for $8.58 million from the Montreal public transportation system, Exo, to reinforce Philadelphia’s Regional Rail fleet.
The sale was finalized March 12 after Exo’s board approved it, said Rosalie Lavoie, a spokesperson for the company.
SEPTA also will receive spare parts for the coaches, which officials said were built between 1987 and 1989.
“It will be great to get them out on the line,” said SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch. “We’re trying to do everything we can to increase the cars available on Regional Rail.”
SEPTA has been recovering from the fallout after five of its 50-year-old Silverliner IV rail cars caught fire last year.
In October, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) ordered SEPTA to inspect and repair all 223 of those cars, the mainstay of the Regional Rail fleet.
For months, passengers dealt with canceled trips, delays and skipped stops as the Silverliner IVs were fixed. Many trains were shorter than usual, and packed with passengers, because there weren’t enough cars.
Regional Rail service has improved, though passengers report that some trains on some lines are still packed at times.
Unlike Silverliner IVs and the newer V series, which both carry passengers and power the train, the Montreal cars must be pulled or pushed by locomotives.
Regional Rail has a fleet of 45 similar coaches and last year SEPTA leased 10 more from Maryland’s commuter rail agency, MARC, to help add capacity.
SEPTA also has 15 ACS-64 electric locomotives, which it bought in 2019.
Under the sale agreement, SEPTA has to take possession of the 24 Montreal rail cars by June 1. The transit agency is working with the freight railroad CSX on the logistics of hauling them south via rail, Bush said.
There’s no used rail car lot for transit vehicles, or even a virtual marketplace. Most public agencies hang onto their cars as long as possible and they don’t come up for sale often.
But public transit is a relatively small industry so SEPTA officials reached out to their contacts around the continent and discovered Montreal had 24 for sale.
“The rail cars became available for sale following fleet modernization,” said Lavoie, of Exo. The Montreal authority is gradually introducing new passenger cars on its commuter lines.
SEPTA employees inspected the Bombardier cars in Montreal and looked at maintenance records and determined they were a worthy investment, Busch said.
Money for their purchase will come from $219 million Gov. Josh Shapiro shifted to SEPTA last November after the legislature failed to increase the state subsidy for public transit, SEPTA said.
It is not yet clear when the Bombardier Comets will be able to enter service, or on which Regional Rail lines they’ll be used.
Busch said that SEPTA will need to make small adjustments before the cars can go. Some things, such as emergency lighting, need to conform to FRA standards, which differ from those of Canadian rail regulators, he said.
SEPTA also plans to install positive train control on several cab cars, the coaches that go last in a train and act essentially as a caboose.
And some French signs will be swapped for English ones.