The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) is a regional public transportation authority that operates bus, rapid transit, commuter rail, light rail, and electric trolleybus services for nearly four million people throughout five counties in and around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It also manages projects that maintain, replace, and expand its infrastructure, facilities, and vehicles.
The Keystone Service is a 195 mile regional passenger train service from Amtrak, that operates between the Harrisburg Transportation Center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, running along the Philadelphia to Harrisburg Main Line. Most trains then continue along the Northeast Corridor (NEC) to Penn Station in New York City.
The Maryland Area Rail Commuter (MARC) is a commuter rail system in the Washington–Baltimore area. MARC is administered by the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) and operated under contract by Alstom and Amtrak on track owned by CSX Transportation (CSXT) and Amtrak. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 3,860,600, or about 14,000 per weekday as of the second quarter of 2024, less than pre-COVID-19 pandemic weekday ridership of 40,000.
The Budd Company was a 20th-century metal fabricator, a major supplier of body components to the automobile industry, and a manufacturer of stainless steel passenger rail cars, airframes, missile and space vehicles, and various defense products.
The SEPTA Regional Rail system is a commuter rail network owned by SEPTA and serving the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The system has 13 branches and more than 150 active stations in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, its suburbs and satellite towns and cities. It is the sixth-busiest commuter railroad in the United States. In 2016, the Regional Rail system had an average of 132,000 daily riders and 118,800 daily riders as of 2019.
The PRR E44 was an electric, rectifier-equipped locomotive built by General Electric for the Pennsylvania Railroad between 1960 and 1963. The PRR used them for freight service on the Northeast Corridor. They continued in service under Penn Central and Conrail until Conrail abandoned its electric operations in the early 1980s. They were then acquired by Amtrak and NJ Transit, where they lived short lives; all were retired by the mid-1980s. One is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.
The Comet railcar is a class of locomotive-hauled railcars that was first designed in the late 1960s by Pullman-Standard as a modern commuter car for North American rail lines. Later, the Comet moniker was adopted by NJ Transit for all of its non-powered single level commuter coaches. Additional series of cars bearing the Comet name, based on the original design, have since been built by Bombardier Transportation and Alstom. The successful design was adopted by numerous commuter agencies.
The M1 and M3 are two similar series of electric multiple unit rail cars built by the Budd Company for the Long Island Rail Road, the Metro-North Railroad, and Metro-North's predecessors, Penn Central and Conrail. Originally branded by Budd as Metropolitans, the cars are more popularly known under their model names, M1 and M3. The Metro-North cars were branded under the M1A and M3A series.
The Pioneer III railcar was a short/medium-distance coach designed and built by the Budd Company in 1956 with an emphasis on weight savings. A single prototype was built, but declines in rail passenger traffic resulted in a lack of orders so Budd re-designed the concept as an electric multiple unit (m.u.). Six of the EMU coach design were purchased by the Pennsylvania Railroad with the intention of using them as a high-speed self-contained coach that could be used for long-distance commuter or short-distance intercity travel in the Northeast U.S. The 6 production Pioneer III units were the first all-stainless-steel-bodied EMU railcar built in North America and, at 90,000 pounds (41,000 kg), the lightest.
The Pennsylvania Railroad's MP54 was a class of electric multiple unit railcars. The class was initially constructed as an unpowered, locomotive hauled coach for suburban operations, but were designed to be rebuilt into self-propelled units as electrification plans were realized. The first of these self-propelled cars were placed in service with the PRR subsidiary Long Island Rail Road with DC propulsion in 1908 and soon spread to the Philadelphia-based network of low frequency AC electrified suburban lines in 1915. Eventually the cars came to be used throughout the railroad's electrified network from Washington, D.C. to New York City and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
The Budd Metroliner was a class of American electric multiple unit (EMU) railcar designed for first-class, high-speed service between New York City and Washington, D.C., on the Northeast Corridor. They were designed for operation up to 150 miles per hour (240 km/h): what would have been the first high speed rail service in the Western Hemisphere. Although 164 mph (264 km/h) was reached during test runs, track conditions and electrical issues limited top speeds to 120 mph (190 km/h) in revenue service. The single-ended units were designed to be arranged in two-car sets, which were in turn coupled into four to eight-car trains.
The MultiLevel Coach is a bi-level passenger rail car for use on commuter rail lines. Originally built by Bombardier Transportation beginning in 2006, they are now built by Alstom since 2021, who markets the coaches as part of their Adessia Coach series.
The Jersey Arrow is a type of electric multiple unit (EMU) railcar developed for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and used through successive commuter operators in New Jersey, through to NJ Transit. Three models were built, but only the third model is in use today. The series is similar to SEPTA's Silverliner series, but include center doors among other differences in details.
The Media/Wawa Line is a SEPTA Regional Rail service that runs from Center City Philadelphia west to Wawa in Delaware County. It uses the West Chester Branch, which connects with the SEPTA Main Line at 30th Street Station. Under the Pennsylvania Railroad, service continued to West Chester, Pennsylvania. On September 19, 1986, however, service was truncated to Elwyn.
The Paoli/Thorndale Line, commonly known as the Main Line, is a SEPTA Regional Rail service running from Center City Philadelphia through Montgomery County and Delaware County to Thorndale in Chester County. It operates along the far eastern leg of Amtrak's Philadelphia to Harrisburg Main Line, which in turn was once the Main Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad and is now part of the Keystone Corridor, a federally-designated high-speed rail corridor.
The Silverliner V is an electric multiple unit railcar designed and built by Hyundai Rotem. It is used by Philadelphia's SEPTA Regional Rail and Denver's Regional Transportation District. This is the fifth generation railcar in the Silverliner family of single level EMUs.
The ACMUs were a series of electric multiple unit railcars built for the New York Central Railroad in three orders between 1950 and 1965. The ACMUs were intended to replace/supplement the original fleet of heavyweight MU cars, some of which dated to the start of electric operations on the New York Central. These were the first New York Central units to offer air conditioning, with sealed windows replacing the drop sash and clerestory types found on earlier cars. The initial set of 100 cars was retired in 1970, upon completion of the M1 railcar delivery, while the second and third orders, totaling 87 cars, remained in service until 2004, when they were replaced by the new M7 fleet.
Silverliner is the name given to a series of electric multiple unit (EMU) railcars in commuter rail service in the Philadelphia area since 1958. As of the introduction of the Silverliner V in 2009–2010, there have been 5 generations of Silverliner cars, identified by the Roman numerals I through V placed after the name Silverliner. The Silverliner name came from the classes' shiny stainless steel body shell, which contrasted with the painted and frequently rusting carbon steel railcars used by the Pennsylvania and Reading Railroads between 1915 and 1936. Applied to the first large production order in 1963, the cars made such an impression that the name has since been applied to all subsequent MU classes purchased by SEPTA for the Regional Rail services.
The Budd Silverliner was a model of electric multiple unit railcar designed and built by the Budd Company with 59 examples being delivered starting in 1963. Fifty-five of the cars were purchased for the Reading and Pennsylvania Railroads with public funds for use in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, area commuter rail service with the remaining 4 cars being purchased by USDOT for use in high-speed rail experiments in 1965. Based on a series of 6 prototype Pioneer III cars built in 1958, the Silverliners represented the first production order of "modern" commuter MU equipment purchased by either railroad and earned their name from their unpainted stainless steel construction which contrasted with the painted carbon steel bodies of the pre-war MU fleets. The cars became a fixture of SEPTA Regional Rail service providing the name to their entire series of EMU railcars before finally being retired in 2012 after 49 years in service.
The United Railroad Historical Society of New Jersey, Inc. is a non-profit educational organization directed at supporting the preservation of New Jersey's historical railroad equipment and artifacts for the proposed New Jersey Transportation Heritage Center or in its absence, another railroad museum in New Jersey.
