FORDS DAYS ARE NUMBERED At least four cutaway buses are off the road and being prepared for retirement as we speak. 2015 and 2018, which spent their entire lives at Germantown on TPC operations, are now in dead storage at the Courtland shops (this is the complex behind the Berridge Shops on 3 St). Though I haven't officially confirmed this yet, the original cutaway buses (2001, 2002, and 2004) may be out of service as well. At Frontier, at least two Fords are listed as out of service - 2030 and 2036 (2033 should've been taken out of service months ago, since the steering on that bus is pathetic; this observation is based on riding 2033 regularly on the 92/133). That's the good news. The bad news is that there is still no word on replacing the Fords. (On a related note, a quick observation of Berridge showed no 5600s on the property yet. I'd imagine they're due on SEPTA property within the next week, but I've been saying that for a while now.)

PARADE? WHAT PARADE? Many passengers who were unaware of the annual Chinese New Year parade in Chinatown were in for a shock, as apparently SEPTA didn't know about the parade either. There was no detours posted at the SEPTA web site (now people traveling to the City can understand what we in West Chester endure from SEPTA every time the borough shuts down Gay and/or Market Streets due to a parade or street festival or something). This had a major impact on the Rail Power Shuttles, as there was nearly a 15 minute stretch between buses around 4:00pm. A railroad supervisor asked for the "4:19pm" R5 to Malvern to be held a few minutes to allow the shuttles enough time to get to 30 Street Station. The train in question, #62547, leaves for Malvern at 4:49pm, but what's a half hour difference? Some R1 Airport shuttles actually turned reached Market East via 12 and Filbert Streets instead of Arch and 10 Streets because of the heavy congestion.

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION Your intrepid webmaster's letter to the editor regarding Richard Maloney's lies about the infamous switching problems on the Paoli line two weeks ago was published today (you have to scroll down to the second letter on the linked page).