Most SEPTA trains to have a Quiet Ride car

Shhhhhh!

Starting April 6, most SEPTA Regional Rail rush-hour trains will have a car on which cell-phone conversations and loud talking will be forbidden.

The "Quiet Ride" car will be the first car of every peak-period train that has at least three cars. The "vast majority" of SEPTA's rush-hour trains have at least three cars, customer-service chief Kim Scott Heinle said.

A trial run of the Quiet Ride program, which started in January on express trains on the R5 Lansdale/Doylestown line, was a hit, and many passengers of other lines clamored for the same thing, Heinle said.

"We've been pretty surprised by the level of interest and the level of support for the initiative," he said. Ninety percent of R5 riders who responded to SEPTA surveys said SEPTA should consider extending the concept to other lines.

SEPTA crews today will start placing Quiet Ride decals on train cars and putting up information posters in stations.

"Cell phones are not to be used. They should be kept on mute or vibrate - you can text - and limit yourself to brief, quiet conversation," Heinle said. Passengers in the cars will also be asked to use headsets with any electronic devices.

"If you want to converse, or you have an excited group of kids, or if you want to yak on the phone, go to one of the other cars," Heinle said.

And, even on the unQuiet cars, "be respectful of others. . . . Just because there's a Quiet Ride car doesn't mean there are no rules on the rest of the train."

Enforcement will be left to conductors and other passengers. Conductors will, quietly, remind offenders by handing out cards that read: "SHHHHHH - You're on a Quiet Ride car."

In surveys of passengers on existing R5 quiet cars, 84 percent said most or all of their fellow riders complied with the rules without being reminded.

Matthew Mitchell of the Delaware Valley Association of Rail Passengers said riders liked the program and were looking forward to having it on other trains.

"So far," he said, "it's worked exactly as we've hoped."

A challenge for SEPTA may be passengers whose daily habit is to congregate in the front car with friends and chat the commute away. Heinle said they would be asked, quietly, to reestablish their routines in another car.