Skip to content
Transportation
Link copied to clipboard

SEPTA's heavy duty gear to fight the cold

    by Jason Laughlin
    Published 

Yesterday's blog was about the problems cold weather can cause on a public transportation network. Yesterday morning saw delays up to 40 minutes throughout Regional Rail due to weather-related problems, and the issues didn't end with the morning commute. Tuesday night smoke coming out of a train on the Warminster Line between Jefferson Station and 30th Street Station caused the train to be evacuated and delayed trains in the city by about an hour. The smoke was coming from cabling that is part of the train's engine apparatus, said SEPTA spokesman Andrew Busch. It was probably a preexisting flaw on the 1970's era Silverliner IV, but was exacerbated by the cold.

"Today's been smoother," Busch said Wednesday. "We still had some issues this morning, but definitely smoother today."

With the cold wreaking so much havoc, here's some info on what SEPTA is doing about it, according to Busch. There are preventative steps taken. When a cold snap is coming, trains and trolleys are parked overnight in tunnels to protect them from the briskest air. Much of SEPTA's systems, like brakes operates on air lines, and freezing moisture in those lines can cause malfunctions and can even make vehicles inoperable. The agency's engineers do a lot of preventative maintenance on those systems, Busch said, to try to head off problems. There are also personnel assigned to critical infrastructure areas when weather brings the freeze.

What's really fun, though, is the inventory of equipment SEPTA spent $2.8 million on last year in response to two consecutive brutal winters. These hungry tools are lying in wait for something we haven't had yet this winter… snow. Here's a partial list of the equipment.

  1. Seven snow throwers, $153,300 total, used to clear rail yards.

  2. Four Swingmasters, described as snow throwers/removers, $307,000 each.

  3. A $500,000 cold air blower used to clear snow from switches and interlockings.

  4. And a piece identified as a Snow Dragon. SEPTA bought two of them, one for $250,000 and another for $500,000. They're snow melters. The cheaper one can melt 30 tons of snow an hour. The $500,000 one will melt 60 tons of snow an hour.

Clearly everyone needs a Snow Dragon for their driveways. Now I know what I should have got my dad for Christmas.