SEPTA Equipment Pictures

Anyone have pictures that denote the equipment name and on what line(s) they are used on? Include possible revenue service combinations.

Wonderful....

F40, if you are referring to the railroad division, no equipment is "assigned" to a particular branch or line, as is typical on some other mass transit systems. Since the opening of the commuter tunnel 20 years ago, all of the MU's and even the push-pulls pretty much roam the entire system. The only exception would be that the Fox Chase, Norristown/Cynwyd and Chestnut Hill East/West lines do not have any scheduled push-pull runs. Septa MU's were built by Budd, St. Louis Car Company (SL II's) and GE (SL III's). The push-pull equipment is AEM-7's, plus one ALP-44, and Bombardier coaches and cab cars.

As far as the subway systems, the Broad Street and Market-Frankford lines are totally exclusive of one another. In fact they don't even operate on the same gauge with the BSS being standard railroad gauge and the MFL being broad gauge. The BSS equipment was built by Kawasaki around 1980, the MFL cars are from ABB and are now 3-4 years old.

Pictures of Septa equipment abound on the internet, a Google search should help you out.

Budd built the SL I and SL II cars. St Louis built the SL IIIs and GE built the SL IVs.

The SL V contract is still up in their air. Expect Kawasaki to get it.

A brief addendum to Glenn's post...

In creating m.u. pairings, Septa tends to try and pair like with like--Silverliner II's together, and so on, I believe because their systems are more compatible.

Rush hour R5 and R7 lines are good choices for viewing the push-pull trains.

The R6 Norristown is a fair bet for a glimpse of older m.u.'s.

These are just general observations, not hard rules.

-Urban

And of couse there's my favorite line, the Route 100 high-speed line, which is what remains of the Philadelphia and Western (P&W) interurban railroad. The N-5 cars are unique to that line, kind of smaller-size Silverliners. Not so much high-speed running under SEPTA's wobbly management, but still a service unlike any other in the country.

At 69th Street you can see the 100 cars, the Market-Frankford cars, and the suburban-edition Kawasakis used on the Media/Sharon Hill trolley lines, all within a few hundred feet of each other.

Here are some web sites that other people have made about SEPTA equipment:

The world.nycsubway.org site has both pictures and info on the various lines.

Some more photos.

You can search on www.railpictures.net.

Urban D Kaye wrote:A brief addendum to Glenn's post...
In creating m.u. pairings, Septa tends to try and pair like with like--Silverliner II's together, and so on, I believe because their systems are more compatible.

The Silverliner II and III cars often run in mixed consists, and you occasionally see them mixed with the IVs--there's no obstacle to doing so, but the IVs have power doors with MU control while the others are manual.

Before the interior rebuild, you used to have a portion of the Silverliner III fleet, the Harrisburg cars with 2-2 seating, assigned primarily to Airport service--they had yellow "PHL" bands on the ends.

While we're speaking of end bands, only PCB-free cars are allowed in the new yard at Frazer. Those cars used to be marked with blue tape stripes on the ends, but now they have numbers in the 400 series, which makes it easier for the dispatchers to know which cars are permitted there. So for that reason, you'll see mostly Silverliner IVs on the Paoli line.

Matthew Mitchell wrote:The Silverliner II and III cars often run in mixed consists, and you occasionally see them mixed with the IVs--there's no obstacle to doing so, but the IVs have power doors with MU control while the others are manual.

True, and I've seen mixed consists. Was just painting in broad strokes on my earlier post. Bit too broad I guess. Thanks for the correction.

* * *

A side note... As time capsules go, Philly's Regional Rail system is rather exceptional. While the Silverliner II's are still with us, it's still possible to see an all-Reading consist on an ex-RDG branch (or an all-PRR consist on Pennsy rails). Not too tough, as Easter Egg hunts go, but where else can you see 40-year-old equipment from a fallen flag still in revenue passenger service on home rails.

-Urban

A couple illustrations of discussions in this topic:

SL II #218 still has "LVANIA" on one side:

http://community.webshots.com/photo/853 ... 1117XMPIhd

mixed SL IV and II:

http://community.webshots.com/photo/109 ... 6541ssmejh

I finally found the photos that I was looking for in the previous post: Silverliners II,III, and IV in the same train:

http://www.subwayspot.com/gallery/album20/04_04_16_29

http://www.subwayspot.com/gallery/album20/04_04_16_32

F40, you also won't see the push-pull sets on the RDG side of the R5. They don't run to Lansdale or Doylestown, but they do go as far as Glenside before heading to Warminster on the R2 (the locomotive leads on the inbound runs, arr Glenside at 7:36am.)