Tuesday, May 23, 2006

SEPTA TESTING A "NEW" NEW FLYER

Last Tuesday, SEPTA had a New Flyer DE40LF in the new streamlined design on display in front of 1234 Market. Today, SEPTA engineers were doing testing of the bus on, of all places, the 104. No passengers were taken, as most of the seats were occupied with bags of rock salt (I recall someone once mentioning that was a weight simulation test, but don't quote me on it). The hybrid system on this particular test bus is different from the existing hybrids running out of Southern presently.

MULTIPLE PERSON v. VEHICLE INCIDENTS

Yesterday was one very busy day for EMS workers across the region, as far as SEPTA related incidents are concerned.

The mess started at around 07:00, when two teenage girls were struck by a SEPTA bus at 29-Allegheny in North Philadelphia. The injuries were non-life threatening.

Shortly after that incident, a 23 bus was involved in an accident involving 3 other vehicles on the 7500 block of Germantown Av in Chestnut Hill. At least two passengers on the bus were taken to local hospitals.

Later in the afternoon, police and EMS were dispatched at around 13:30 to Glenolden, where a tresspasser was struck and killed by a train along the NEC/R2 Marcus Hook line in the area of Ashland Av bridge. Service was delayed by about 20 minutes in both directions until around 17:00, when service slowly returned to normal (my R2 from Delaware - scheduled to depart Claymont at 16:51 - was delayed by less than 10 minutes; arrived in Chester only 7 minutes down, but missed my connection to the 118).

Two hours later, in Bucks County, a 24-year-old male was struck and killed by a train near Chalfont Station on the R5 Lansdale line. The victim was discovered at around 15:30 by a northbound train crew. It is believed that the victim may have been struck by an earlier train; the matter is still under investigation.

Finally, a 73-year-old woman was struck and seriously injured in South Philadelphia. The incident occured shortly before 21:00 last night on the 400 block of Oregon in South Philadelphia as the victim was struck by a 57 bus. The victim was taken to Jefferson Hospital with severe leg injuries.

That's 7 people confirmed to have been killed or injured on the SEPTA system in a nearly 14 hour period due to accidents. Yipes...