Eight Silverliners???

My trip home today from Swarthmore to Wyndmoor was hampered by the usual delays and then some, but the odd thing was that while at 30th St, waiting for the R7 (late as usual), in came an R8 to Fox Chase with a 'Limited' sign. The first odd thing was that the conducter said that the train was ending at Suburban. The second odd thing was that it was *eight* Silverliners long. This I have never seen before. Is that usual? Was that a special train of some sort? Were they redistributing backed up cars from CHW? Any trouble on that line?

Anyone have any information?

It was really a non-revenue move to get cars into suburban station to distribute to other trains. Such moves can be up to 12 cars long...I have seen a 10-car train deadhead from Trenton along the Northeast corridor several months ago. The R8 sign was probably just left in there from the last time the car was used.

Do they do that often? I've never seen one in that time and place before.

Also, at least some of the cars were in revenue service - people got off at 30th st.

Actually, it was a revenue train, after all. My wife was on the first peak 4-car outbound R8, which ran into some problems: the switch to send it up the CHW branch didn't throw, so it pulled into the R7 North Philadelhpia station, instead. After trying to get the switch to throw for some time, they decided instead to perform a passenger swap between her 4-car train and a 2-car inbound train that was stuck at R8 North Philly -- inbound R8 passengers were marched to the R7 North Philly station and the outbound R8 passengers were marched to the R8 North Philly station. Given the length of time it took them to work this out,though, they waited for the next trains, too. The 2nd outbound peak train joined the one waiting at the R7 North Philly station, transferring its passengers to the R8 station by foot, and the 2nd inbound train did the opposite.

In the end there were 4 cars, originally inbound in 2 trains, that turned around at R8 North Philly and carried the outbound passengers home. Consequently, that meant there were 8 cars, originally outbound in 2 trains, that turned around at R7 North Philly and carried the inboud passengers to center city.

One case where it really does look like Amtrak's fault, since they own the switch, right?

During a hurricane several years back the R5 and 100 were down so I took a chance on the R6, which somehow was running despite being SEPTA's version of the Water-Level Route near Conshohocken. We picked up one stuck consist near North Philly and connected to yet a second one somewhere beyond Manayunk. How we had power and the others didn't was a mystery, but the end result was that we provided the push for what I believe was a 14-car operation.

We actually made it to Elm Street, with cheers for the crew. There are lots of reasons to grumble about the way many SEPTA employees do (or don't) perform their jobs, but these guys aced the day.

In 2001 I was on an eight car R2 train to Wimington because of the unexpected blizzard. All the trains went up to Warminster (3 to be exact) & none came back down. Finally after waiting @ Hatboro station from 3pm to 8pm the eight car consist finally came. It was so bad it looked like rush hour with all the people who were on the train. The train only went to Fern Rock that night with everyone transfering to the Broad Street Line. I'm not a big fan of the subways @ times, but it's a good thing they run underground so when it snows the service there is not normall affected like the regional rail lines...

In the past, I've seen stories about 8+ cars on RRD after special events on some of the busier lines (Paoli, Trenton, etc). Nowadays, the most I can recall seeing was a 6-car train on the Paoli line for the Thanksgiving Day parade.

The "Neshaminy Limited" on the West Trenton line is a six-car consist as well (#6321 in the AM, #6378 in the PM). I'm pretty sure there's a six-car set for the Doylestown line that runs around the same time. I've also seen one or two six-car consists that run during rush hour on the Trenton line.

As an aside, but connected to Myke's story about the 2001 snowstorm, this past winter I was on the train in to Center City when things got backlogged around Jenkintown (most likely a frozen switch). They ended up hooking two or three separate consists together when the situation was resolved, so we ended up coming in to 30th Street with at least a dozen cars.