SEPTA announced on Thursday the purchasing of 24 Canadian rail cars to bolster its Regional Rail fleet.
The cars were purchased from Exo of Quebec, which operates public transportation in the Greater Montreal area. The company formally approved SEPTA’s $8.58 million bid for the coach cars at its board meeting in March. The cars were originally manufactured by Bombardier in the late 1980s and will operate with SEPTA’s existing fleet of ACS-64 electric locomotives.
Funding for the purchase of these rail cars comes from the nearly $220 million in additional capital dollars allocated by Governor Josh Shapiro in November 2025 to support urgent safety upgrades and infrastructure improvements.
“We are grateful for Gov. Shapiro’s continued support of SEPTA, and we are committed to continuing to deliver improvements for our customers,” said General Manager Scott A. Sauer. “These additional rail cars will help us enhance reliability and expand capacity for our customers while we work toward replacing our aging Regional Rail fleet.”
SEPTA has been in contact with transit agencies across North America in recent months about potential rail car purchases, following FRA-mandated inspections and repairs of its 50-year-old Silverliner IV fleet last fall. These trains were involved in fires in Ridley Park, Levittown, Paoli, Fort Washington, and Philadelphia.
The Silverliner IVs make up approximately two-thirds of the Regional Rail fleet, and large portions had to be removed from service while this work was performed.
In an effort to avoid further service disruptions, SEPTA has explored shorter-term alternatives such as leasing and purchasing used rail cars from other agencies. Earlier this year, 10 rail cars leased from MARC in Maryland were placed into service.
SEPTA is currently working out logistics for transporting these passenger rail cars from Montreal. A timeline for placing them into service will be developed later this spring.
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Photo: SEPTA