SEPTA Board considers $725M contract to buy new fleet of cars for Market-Frankford Line

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The SEPTA Board is scheduled to vote Thursday on a $725 million contract to buy all new cars for the Market-Frankford Line .

“This is really going to be a monumental shift in transit service for the region,” said SEPTA Chief Operating Officer Scott Sauer. “It’s a generational purchase.”

Under the contract with Pittsburgh-based Hitachi Rail STS USA, SEPTA would buy 200 cars with options to buy more. The effort would replace the entire 1990s-era fleet on SEPTA’s most-used line.

“This equipment has to last 30 to 40 years,” he noted.

Sauer said the seating arrangements would look different. The new cars would have longitudinal seating — seats along the side of the car that face inward. Riders won’t have to open a door to move between cars either.

“This train is going to be designed with open gangways that will facilitate movement between cars,” he said. “It’ll create better sight lines for law enforcement or SEPTA staff. They’ll be able to see car to car a little easier.

“There will be dedicated space for customers with mobility needs, disabilities, people with strollers or bicycles — there will be designated areas for that. So these are the pretty obvious upgrades you’re going to see in a modern fleet replacing our Market-Frankford fleet.”

SEPTA is using a $317 million Federal Transit Administration grant to buy the new cars. The first pilot car is expected to arrive in the fall of 2028, with SEPTA taking delivery of the first production cars in the spring of 2029. All 200 new cars are expected to join the fleet by the spring of 2031.

Two years from now, Sauer said, SEPTA plans to begin the process of replacing the nearly 40-year-old cars on the Broad Street subway. “We could be seeing the Broad Street cars aged out and be replaced within the next decade,” he added.