Regional Rail

SEPTA abruptly canceled its quarter-billion-dollar purchase of new Regional Rail cars yesterday in order to end a lawsuit that accused the transit agency of rigging the bid to favor a South Korean firm. In a written statement released yesterday, SEPTA board chairman Pasquale "Pat" Deon said the potential legal costs prompted him to end the suit and put the contract out to bid again. SEPTA expects quickly to invite new bids for the contract to build 104 new cars for the Regional Rail system, the statement said.

More money or less service. That was the familiar essence of SEPTA's capital-budget presentation Tuesday, as the agency noted how little $308 million will buy these days. In two hearings at its Center City headquarters, SEPTA officials outlined what they described as a bare-bones spending plan for construction, new vehicles, and growing debt service. Cuts in state funding have reduced SEPTA's capital budget 25 percent since 2010, and if Harrisburg doesn't come up with more money, the transit future is grim, said Catherine Popp-McDonough, SEPTA's director of capital budgets.

A national strike by Amtrak employees, threatened for as early as Wednesday, could disrupt the daily commute for nearly 25,000 riders on SEPTA's regional rail system. Six of SEPTA's 13 regional rail lines, representing the bulk of passengers on the commuter rail system, run on Amtrak tracks, and depend on Amtrak to provide power, signaling and switching. The other seven regional rail lines would continue operating in case of an Amtrak strike but could be overwhelmed by thousands of additional riders.

When a strike shut down SEPTA buses, trolleys and subways last week, commuters walked, carpooled and relied on the regional rail system to get around. When the trains stopped running yesterday, transit riders rose to the challenge again. Picketing transit workers shut down service on seven of SEPTA's 17 regional rail lines. SEPTA canceled most service on the R1 Airport line, R2 Wilmington, and the R7 and R8 lines into Chestnut Hill and Fox Chase, the R6 Cynwyd Line and the R7 Trenton.

Less than a year after a weeklong strike stilled buses, subways and trolleys, SEPTA once again faces the threat of a shutdown - this time, regional commuter trains. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), whose 195 local members run SEPTA regional-rail trains, have worked without a contract for almost a year. Union leaders and SEPTA are at odds over wages. In November, the transit authority gave its largest union - Transport Workers Union Local 234 - a four-year deal with annual 3 percent raises.

Ask Ed Wilkes about the future of transportation in the suburbs and he'll tell you to look at Route 202 during rush hour. The outlook isn't pretty, he said, particularly if SEPTA eliminates its weekend service and some off-peak weekday service on its regional rail lines, as it has proposed. "People will get back in their cars," said Wilkes, chairman of the Upper Merion Board of Supervisors and a SEPTA commuter for 17 years. And he wasn't buoyed by what he heard at the authority's hearing at the Valley Forge Hilton in King of Prussia on Tuesday night, the second in a series of five meetings the authority held on its proposed cuts to the regional rail lines.

FIRST, there's a thump. Then - lightning fast - a crunch. The inhuman sound erupted moments after Richard Dixon jerked the emergency brake on the train he was operating. Right away, he knew what it was - the sound of a body being crushed beneath his train. It was a 17-year-old boy. "It's really hard to describe," the engineer said, recalling the suicide that unfolded a decade ago as his Regional Rail train barreled north from Jenkintown toward Warminster. "You just know it - and you don't forget it. " For 15 people, trains speeding along the city's railroads have been a gruesome, but easily accessible, means of killing themselves over the past five years.

TO REDUCE the number of trespassers who die on its rails, SEPTA will hold its first-ever Safety Awareness Day during morning rush tomorrow, sending 500 staffers to 160 regional rail, subway and trolley stations to warn riders that a trespass can be a TransPass to a violent end. SEPTA had 111 rail deaths from 2003 to 2012 on its regional rail (74 deaths), subway (27) and trolley (10) lines - including 41 confirmed suicides. There have been eight rail deaths in 2013, including two confirmed suicides.

Highlights of SEPTA plan to be discussed at a public hearing today: Raising the base cash fare from $2 to $2.50 and increasing the average price of all other SEPTA fares by 25 percent. Reducing weekday service on all city and suburban routes, including regional rail, by 20 percent. Suspending weekend service on all city and suburban, regional rail and paratransit routes Eliminating approximately 1,400 SEPTA employee positions in response to reduced levels of service.

All SEPTA regional rail lines will be working Wednesday, operating from the normal start of service in the morning on a weekday schedule, SEPTA announced Tuesday evening. Meanwhile, PATCO announced that service resumed at 6 p.m. tonight, with trains departing every half hour. Amtrak was to resume most service in the area Wednesday, though New York City service remains suspended because of tunnel flooding. NJ Transit said it would resume limited bus service Wednesday in Camden.