Production problems delay delivery of SEPTA's new Silverliner railcars
(The following story by Paul Nussbaum appeared on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on August 31, 2010.)
PHILADELPHIA Already eight months behind schedule, SEPTA's new Silverliner V railcars will be delayed further by production and labor difficulties at the manufacturer's South Philadelphia plant, according to an internal SEPTA report.
The first of the 120 new cars is now expected to be delivered in October, spokesman Richard Maloney said Friday. The first production car had originally been slated for delivery in January, and then for this month.
The last car is now expected to be delivered in June, rather the contract date of October.
"These are custom-made railcars," Maloney said. "When we eventually get them, we think our passengers will be very happy. But we have to get it right the first time."
SEPTA's Regional Rail passengers, packed into overcrowded cars during morning and evening rush hours, have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of new cars since the contract was first awarded in 2004, thrown out because of competitors' complaints, and awarded again in 2006.
A faulty communications system still plagues the new cars, and some of the vehicles being outfitted at a South Korean factory have been held up by rust damage.
And the new railcars are nearly 10,000 pounds overweight.
The additional weight "is not considered a problem in performance or maintenance," Maloney said.
The builder of the new cars, United Transit Systems, is a consortium of Hyundai-Rotem Co. of South Korea and Sojitz Corp. of America, a U.S. subsidiary of Sojitz Corp. of Japan.
The 120 new Silverliner V cars, for which SEPTA is paying $274 million, are being built in South Korea, and final assembly is being done at a plant on Weccacoe Avenue in South Philadelphia.
Both plants have encountered problems, according to an internal SEPTA report.
Inexperienced workers, late material shipments, and poor workmanship "continue to cause production car delays at the final assembly facility" in South Philadelphia, the report said.
The manufacturer has hired additional workers locally and brought more employees in from its plant in Changwon, South Korea, to try to speed production.
"UTS continues to struggle with labor expertise and experience levels of the workers at the local plant," the report said. Inspectors at the plant "have noted some improvements in material availability, though there are shortage issues that continue to impact production activities from time to time."
United Transit has not solved problems with the system by which train engineers will communicate with SEPTA's control center. "Unfortunately, the equipment continued to fail the testing, although some progress has been reported," the SEPTA report said. The system will require further redesign, the report said.
At the South Korea plant, where the car shells are built and partially equipped, work has been slowed by the need to repair rust damage on 10 cars.
"It was originally anticipated that all car shells would be completed at the end of August, but this additional work effort is expected to add a number of weeks to the process," the report said.
Each finished car is expected to weigh about 146,600 pounds, instead of 137,000 pounds.
The new Silverliners will replace 73 railcars built for SEPTA in the 1960s. With the retirement of the old cars and the addition of the 120 new ones, SEPTA is to have about 400 railcars by mid-2011.
