NTSB issues urgent safety warning to SEPTA over fire risks involving Silverliner IV railcars

This story originally appeared on 6abc.

The National Transportation Safety Board issued a stern warning to SEPTA on Wednesday, urging the transit agency to take immediate action due to fire risks in its fleet of Silverliner IV railcars.

The warning follows a series of fires on the following dates:

• Feb. 6 in Ridley Park
• June 3 in Levittown, Pennsylvania
• July 22 in Paoli, Pennsylvania
• Sept. 23 in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania
• Sept. 25 in Philadelphia

The NTSB said the outdated design of the railcars, combined with SEPTA’s maintenance practices, “represents an immediate and unacceptable safety risk.”

Investigators found that the safety issues cannot be fully addressed without a comprehensive retrofit or replacement of the fleet.

“The NTSB also found that SEPTA’s current operating practices have failed to protect passengers and crews because defective railcars have been kept in passenger service,” the federal agency stated on Wednesday. “Investigators said the recurrence of fires — despite SEPTA’s attempted fixes — shows organizational lapses that block effective risk mitigation.”

During a news conference on Wednesday, SEPTA GM Scott Sauer says the transit agency developed a comprehensive set of 40 mitigation measures in cooperation with the FRA and NTSB, which include additional notifications and safety checks, audible alarms for fault lights and personnel.

“Due to these efforts, we are confident that we can safely continue service with the Silverliner IV fleet,” said Sauer.

New safety steps include in-person inspections for all trains going through the Center City stations and live video monitoring.

“We’ve been using the Silverliner Force less than the rest of the fleet, and we’ve instituted more frequent and thorough inspections,” added Sauer.

Despite NTSB calling for the suspension of the Silverliner IV fleet until the root causes of the fires are identified, Sauer says he’s confident the railcars are safe.

“We are also so confident that our mitigation efforts will allow us to maintain safe service for our customers moving forward,” he added.

The full list of recommendations includes the following:

• Suspend operation of the Silverliner IV fleet until the transit agency determines the root causes of fires, develops and implements a plan to address these causes and identifies and corrects the organizational factors that have prevented effective risk mitigations.
• Implement a plan to monitor the success of its risk-mitigation approach to the Silverliner IV fleet, including provisions for immediately removing the fleet from service again if its mitigations fail to prevent fires.
• Create an expedited procurement or retrofit schedule and seek funding from appropriate sources as soon as possible to accelerate the replacement of the Silverliner IV fleet or its retrofit to include modern feedback systems and meet federal fire safety standards for new railcars.

You can read the full report at NTSB.gov.