finally - new seats on the el!

Forgive me if this has been posted before; I do not visit this board on a frequent schedule.

As luck would have it, I boarded M4 #1037 at 15th St. this evening to find that it (along with its "spouse" in the married pair) has been retrofitted with new seats, replacing those god-awful cushions. The new seats are roughly identical to those found in most SEPTA buses - basically metal with "pop-in" fabric inserts. (They are not the new "curved-back" bus seats.) I was surprised at how well they had been adapted into the car! The fabric inserts used seems to be the same as on the buses - dark blue.

I wish they had ditched the fabric altogether and gone with seats like those on the subway-surface or BSS, but it's still a phenomenal improvement over the cushions, most of which have by this point become quite, for lack of a better term, feculent. I had heard that they were planning to outfit a pair of cars to test the new seats back when I visited the MFSE shop at 69th street in May. The bad news is that at that time they were planning to run the test cars for at least 6 months before deciding whether to apply the new seating to the rest of the fleet. But given the level of the improvement, I cannot see how they could possibly decide not to.

Sounds like they're testing new seats salvaged from old buses. Didn't the new PCC-II trolley also use those seats?

The last time I rode the El, they had the old fabric seats.

The married pair of 1033-1034 were the guinea pigs for the retrofits. They stayed at Woodland Shops for a couple of months being gutted out and overhauled.

Finally, new seats! Has anyone heard of plans to reconfigure the seating at the same time? Considering the number of riders getting on and off between 2nd street and 34th street station, I think bench style seating between the 3 sets of doors is a better format. The EL trains are not wide enough. Bench seating will allow easier movement of passengers.

Well, I can't vouch for 1033-1034, but this was DEFINITELY 1037. And I don't forsee them reconfiguring the seating arrangement, despite the fact that they should.

And yes, these are the same types of seats as in the PCC-IIs. I couldn't tell if they were re-used or factory-fresh, but either way they looked great.

I would personally have preferred the padded simulated leather seats they have on the Route 100 trolley. On the other hand, from a cost standpoint, hard bench seats and packing them in as tight as possible is the best solution.

Set 1033-1034 were coverted to new revenue collection cars to replace the Budds and 1037-1038 received the new test seats.

The bus seats are terrible. Try riding that thing end to end and see how you feel when you get up. Unfortunately the MFL is going to continue to live up to its surname--the "smell".

Is SEPTA going to trash the last Almond Joys? I still see a few sets at Frankford.

Any chance they will hold onto a set for fantrips like the Brill cars on the BSL? Speaking of, I bet they haven't moved in years. I guess NRHS can't afford the charter anymore...

On the contrary, I think the new "bus" seats are a HUGE improvement. I would gladly sit in one end to end on the el than STAND (which I currently do often because the cushioned seats are too disgusting to sit on). I also think that the odors in the cars will diminish once those bacteria-sponges are gone.

I agree that the best seating arrangement for the el would be bench seats, similar to the seats on New York City's R142 and R143 cars.

Those seats on the MFL now are a horror!

I agree completely. After riding the new cars that NYC has running under Lexington Ave, it is hard to go back to the M4's. In narrow cars like run on the EL and on the IRT, bench seating that runs the lengthwise along the walls of the cars works so much better. It gives people a lot more room to move around. Plus I love the little light boards with the whole subway line on it where a light is lit for every stop that train stops at (which is really helpful when different trains make different stops) and the next station is blinking. Combined with the end of the car digital displays, it really helps people know where they are and where they are going.

Sorry, I didn't mean to go off topic so much but it just sequed so well.

Sean@Temple

Sean@Temple wrote:I agree completely. After riding the new cars that NYC has running under Lexington Ave, it is hard to go back to the M4's. In narrow cars like run on the EL and on the IRT, bench seating that runs the lengthwise along the walls of the cars works so much better. It gives people a lot more room to move around. Plus I love the little light boards with the whole subway line on it where a light is lit for every stop that train stops at (which is really helpful when different trains make different stops) and the next station is blinking. Combined with the end of the car digital displays, it really helps people know where they are and where they are going.

Sorry, I didn't mean to go off topic so much but it just sequed so well.

Sean@Temple

O/T-- although not as much a problem in Philadelphia, problems have arisen with those boards; since they are built into the car itself, and can't be removed or easily changed for service diversions, etc. (such as the car being used on another line to fill in a service gap, etc.), it can lead to even more confusion.

For example, if the car was origionally signed to run on the (5) and then moved over to the (2) for 2 or 3 days, it could mess some people up.

That is an obvious problem but luckily (or unluckliy) for us we do not have to worry about that due to our rather simplistic subway layout.

Bring on the new seats!

Sean@Temple

There is a distance in gauge. MFL uses broad-gauge, while BSL uses Standard Gauge.

That is correct, but I am not seeing what that has to do with anything.


And I still haven't seen the new seats. Curses.

Sean@Temple