The National Transportation Safety Board is urging SEPTA to implement recommendations immediately to stop the fire risk in the Silverliner IV railcars, the NTSB announced on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
In the recommendations<\/a>, the NTSB states that the outdated design of the Silverliner IV railcars, combined with SEPTA’s maintenance and operating practices, poses an unacceptable safety risk due to the severity of the electrical fires that can spread.<\/p>\n “The NTSB also found that SEPTA’s current operating practices have failed to protect passengers and crews because defective railcars have been kept in passenger service,” the report says.<\/p>\n “The NTSB issues urgent recommendations to address immediate, critical issues that threaten lives or property. The NTSB does not need to wait until the end of investigations to issue recommendations,” the report says. “Recipients have 30 days to respond.”\u00a0<\/p>\n The recommendations stem from NTSB’s investigations into five fires involving Silverliner IV railcars that all happened this year:<\/p>\n SEPTA provided the Federal Railroad Administration with its plan to mitigate fires on the trains in August. But just last week, there was another fire on a Silverliner IV.<\/p>\n The fire last week involved a railcar with a warning light that the NTSB says, according to SEPTA’s own memorandum from July and mitigation plan it send to the Federal Railroad Administration, should not have been in service.<\/p>\n SEPTA told CBS News Philadelphia this report won’t impact train service. “SEPTA is adding some inspections and other steps to ensure safe travel,” they said.<\/p>\n “Investigators said the recurrence of fires — despite SEPTA’s attempted fixes — shows organizational lapses that block effective risk mitigation,” NTSB said.<\/p>\n