Philadelphia Rail Traffic Disrupted by Cracks in New Trains
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Version 0 of 1. PHILADELPHIA — Commuters here faced delays and crowded trains Tuesday after a third of regional rail cars were abruptly pulled out of service over the weekend when a major defect was discovered in part of the fleet. Officials at the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority said inspectors had found cracks in the suspension systems of most of the commuter railroad’s relatively new Silverliner V cars. The repairs could take weeks — a signal that the misery may not end before the Democratic National Convention here later this month. The suspension systems were still under warranty, and Hyundai Rotem, the rail car manufacturer, is working to address the problems, the transit agency said. Officials at Hyundai Rotem could not be reached for comment. The Philadelphia region is the latest in the Northeast to face major transit disruptions over safety problems. In Washington, subway riders are grappling with closings for urgent maintenance work, while New Yorkers are bracing for the closing of a subway tunnel to repair damage from Hurricane Sandy. “These are major inconveniences now, but the idea behind addressing them immediately is that it prevents catastrophic disasters down the line,” said Robert Puentes, the president of the Eno Center for Transportation, a safety nonprofit group. “If one of these cracks would fail, you could have something very tragic.” At Jefferson Station in Center City, Philadelphia, on Tuesday afternoon, commuters gathered on a crowded platform. “It’s crazy,” said Terry Smerling, 56, an insurance broker from Horsham, Pa. “If people are not familiar with the trains, it’s really going to throw them off.” The commuter rail system transports an average of about 65,000 people into the city each weekday. But transit officials said they believe that most people bound for the Democratic National Convention will instead use the city’s subway. The convention will begin on July 25 at the Wells Fargo Center in South Philadelphia. Lee Whack, a spokesman for the Democratic National Convention, said the organizers would work with transit officials to provide “safe and efficient” service during the event. The structural problem on the Silverliner V cars was found early Friday by railroad vehicle maintenance personnel, transit officials said. During inspections of the 120 Silverliner V cars in the fleet, only five cars did not have problematic “fatigue cracks.” Jeffrey D. Knueppel, the transit agency’s general manager, said officials were investigating remedies to fix the cracks, but he said he could not predict how long it would take to repair all of the cars. Asked if it could take months for service to be fully restored, Mr. Knueppel said: “It could. We hope not.” Mr. Knueppel said there were three possible causes for the cracks in the steel beams on the underside of the train cars: defects in materials, workmanship or design, or a mix of all three problems. The Silverliner V cars, now constituting about a third of the regional rail fleet, were unveiled to great fanfare on the regional rail system in 2010, and officials promoted their gleaming facades, spacious interiors and assembly at a new facility in South Philadelphia. The fleet cost $274 million in a contract with Hyundai Rotem, which shipped the train shells from a plant in South Korea. But from the start there were concerns over the purchase of the cars and delays over their arrival, which was not completed until 2013. A competing company, Kawasaki, argued that the Hyundai Rotem group should not have received the contract because it did not have experience building rail cars in the United States. On Tuesday, officials at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, said the agency was inspecting two commuter rail coaches manufactured by Hyundai Rotem in “an abundance of caution.” The Boston region had its own problems when its transit system was paralyzed by snowstorms over the winter of 2015. In Philadelphia, some regional rail passengers were left standing on platforms as trains passed because they were already full, officials said. Trains were running on a modified Saturday schedule with 30-minute intervals between trains on most lines. Anthony DeSantis, the president of the Delaware Valley Association of Rail Passengers, a rider group in the Philadelphia region, said he was stunned by the problems and feared it would be a while before regular service returned. “Nobody expected that if there would be wear and tear, that it would happen this soon,” he said of the rail cars. “It’s very surprising.” Duane Hershberger, 58, a consultant from Glenside, Pa., who was delayed on his trip into the city, said the transit agency had made the right decision. “If they find a safety issue on some of the cars, I would hope they pull them off, which is what they have done,” Mr. Hershberger said. “I think they are doing the best they can with it.” |