Silverliner V

Uh, last time I checked, those MCI busses aren't used on the SEPTA system. AT ALL.

Jersey_Mike wrote: Furthermore, on SEPTA the lo-level entry helps with fare collection which are often problems on commuter rail lines. Because passengers at lo-level stations have to enter past crew members the crew members can better keep track of who is getting on and needs to have their ticket collected. Often during off peak times the crews collect fares on the platform.

Never on the R7 trains I took. 2 crew members on 4 cars, 3 with 5 or 6 cars. I never passed by a crew member while entering or exiting.

I personally hate low level platforms. It takes several times longer to load and unload passengers than high platforms with or without the center door. If the TGV can have hidden steps that get used at every station, so could Silverliners if SEPTA had all highplatforms for use during such occasions as center track boarding.

If the TGV can have hidden steps that get used at every station

They're necessary at every station since they all have low platforms IIRC. Perhaps you mean the Eurostar?

Uh, last time I checked, those MCI busses aren't used on the SEPTA system

Not SEPTA, but plenty of NJT cruiser buses operate into and out of Philly every day.

Jersey_Mike wrote:Furthermore, on SEPTA the lo-level entry helps with fare collection which are often problems on commuter rail lines. Because passengers at lo-level stations have to enter past crew members the crew members can better keep track of who is getting on and needs to have their ticket collected. Often during off peak times the crews collect fares on the platform.

Those "platform lifts" are prohibited, according to the last SEPTA Passenger Operations manual I saw (y'know, it would be good for someone to post a current edition online, or for one of those manuals to find its way into the [postal] mailbox of a group member). Platform lifts slow down service--I've seen countless examples of a train that's ready to go except for a conductor down on the platform punching up a fare.

Because passengers at lo-level stations have to enter past crew members the crew members can better keep track of who is getting on and needs to have their ticket collected

Ehh, people have to "enter past crew members" on high platforms too, on the SEPTA system. It's the same number of doors opening whether at low or high platforms; it ain't like NJT's Arrows. And that doesn't happen on SEPTA anyway.

I personally hate low level platforms. It takes several times longer to load and unload passengers than high platforms with or without the center door

I don't have a preference either way; what I don't like is having both types of platform mixed together on the same railroad at various stations. The only beef I'd have with low platforms is that it permits easier access to the tracks than a high platform would; but OTOH, high platforms have horizontal clearance problems with many types of freight car. There are already many types of rolling stock out there that are specifically designed for the low platform (Superliners, Surfliners, BBD bilevel commuter cars, Talgos)...and owing to the history of the railroads in the USA, it would have been cheaper in the long run to have converted the very few high platforms that existed into low platforms, but instead on many roads in the Northeast, the reverse has occurred.

Getting back to the S-V...it would have been interesting to see one based on BBD's M-7, modified from the EMUs that the LIRR and Metro-North are currently getting. But that's still sometime down the road...pity that NJT is still stuck in its anti-MU thinking, otherwise a joint order of such an EMU would have spurred things forward (Silverliner V, Arrow IV?—and to see Arrow IVs on NJT would be far more welcome than those bilevels they're currently investing in).

Why is NJT so anti-MU? It looks like all their new equipment is push-pull. What's their reasoning? Is it cheaper?

Has to do with inspections and how much money they save having locomotives versus MUs, since MUs are regarded themselves as locos and would have to be taken out of service for a longer period of time than trailer cars due to the required FRA inspections every three months.

Problem is, it's really biting into the schedules of local commuter trains. The schedule-padding even has a nickname, "Shirley Time", after former executive director Shirley DeLibero (who is now the "champion" of the new Houston TX light rail system). Also, there is the potential of total failure of trains due to reliance on a single locomotive—if it fails, the whole train stops, versus being able to limp along and get people to their destinations with a train of EMUs.

Has to be one of the most cheapskate approaches to commuter rail I've seen in a long while. The budget can withstand EMU use and inspections, but instead they go this route.

jfrey40535 wrote:Why is NJT so anti-MU? It looks like all their new equipment is push-pull. What's their reasoning? Is it cheaper?

Yep. They need as many seats into Penn Station as they can manage to get, and they're constrained by money and available slots through the tunnels. The loco-hauled double-deck cars get you the most seats per train and the most seats for your money. They're accepting the performance hit in return.

They're assuming guaranteed ridership, however. The slower the trains get, the greater the pressure will be to improve running times. However, IMHO it would be of greater benefit to improve access from Manhattan to the existing Hoboken Terminal. Penn Station was not built to take all the addtional demands made on it—it was built in a time when the PRR had an alternate terminal at Exchange Place in Jersey City, and it was intended that the LIRR be the sole commuter railroad terminating there.

Irish Chieftain wrote:They're assuming guaranteed ridership, however.

That's pretty much right. They fill up as many seats as they can schedule into Penn.

The slower the trains get, the greater the pressure will be to improve running times. However, IMHO it would be of greater benefit to improve access from Manhattan to the existing Hoboken Terminal.

How's that? It's going to be a longer trip, barring a new PATH tube direct to Midtown. Ferries aren't going to help either since you've then got a slow trip from the dock to your destination. The reason the service into Penn is so popular is that it's the fastest way to Midtown for people for whom time is money.

Penn Station was not built to take all the addtional demands made on it—it was built in a time when the PRR had an alternate terminal at Exchange Place in Jersey City, and it was intended that the LIRR be the sole commuter railroad terminating there.

Yep. And now they're carrying unprecedented numbers of passengers. Unprecedented even from the heyday of the railroads. I think it's above a quarter million total across all roads now. [Yep. Over 160,000 LIRR; 60,000 NJT; and whatever Amtrak is loading, and that was for 2002-2003 with the economy in recession: ridership is up now that the economy has recovered.]

And now they're carrying unprecedented numbers of passengers

Because, as previously mentioned, they are sending trains in there from railroads that the station was not designed to receive trains from. From the west, NYP was designed to only take PRR trains from their main line, what is now the North Jersey Coast Line, and the former Lehigh Valley RR main line (used to be an engine change at Hunter Interlocking for LVRR). But now the station is hosting trains from the former DL&W Morristown Line, Gladstone Line, Montclair Branch (and even former Erie Greenwood Lake branch), as well as trains that used to run into Grand Central Terminal; and existing NJT trains are having their capacity swollen by people transferring off the Main/Bergen/Pascack Valley lines at Secaucus.

One can only hope that the MTA becomes generous and moves as many LIRR trains out of NYP as soon as they complete their "East Side Access" project to get LIRR trains into Grand Central...but even still, there are voices clamoring to get Metro-North trains into NYP once that happens. Can't keep trying to stuff 10 lbs of sugar into that 5 lb bag.

Unprecedented even from the heyday of the railroads

During the heyday of the railroads, there were four other terminals for passengers to go to. It's a false figure.

The reason the service into Penn is so popular is that it's the fastest way to Midtown for people for whom time is money

Thanks to the lack of capacity at both terminal and on the "High Line", that "fastest way" is getting a lot slower. During peak times, it's actually now faster to ride into Hoboken and get PATH (ferry is not feasible since there is no ferry from Hoboken to Midtown). Yes, it is that bad. Waiting times at Kearny Junction on the former DL&W are excessive, even for reverse-commuting and leisure travel.

At the risk of steering this out of NJT-talk:

queenlnr8 wrote:Shouldn't it be SEPTAs goal to go to an ALL high platform system? I mean, I think that is where everything is going these days.

SEPTA and the PA State do not have nearly enough money to do the 100% High Platforming that the MTA got in the 1960s for the electric divisions, and in the 1990s for the entire LIRR. All I am proposing is a way to get the benefits of high-platforming ALL over the SEPTA system without the expense of building anything at the station. We'd have the benefits of level boarding all over the system in 5 years, not 20-30 with a conventional High Platforming with a reasonable budget. You don't have the complex politics and cost overruns that would be inheirent in working on the stations themselves.

You are proposing a custom design that would remove revenue seats, weaken car structure, increase costs nonetheless (possibly to the level of the capital cost of converting station platforms all over SEPTA RRD) and would be redundant if SEPTA actually did get the capital to convert all station platforms from low to high or ADA requirements were relaxed. No sense in fixing what is not broken—the single-levels still have merit.

BTW, thanks for steering the thread away from the off-topic material.

If and when Septa places the order for new SVs, the order will not replace the entire fleet. Septa can replace low level platforms with high on only its most heavily traveled lines. Start with the R5, both ends and the R7 Trenton. Then assigned the new hi-level cars to those lines only.

Indeed. The S-V was always intended to be able to MU with the earlier Silverliners.