A look inside SEPTA Silverliner IV inspections following NTSB report

Now to the ongoing inspections of SEPTA trains that have been leading to delays for commuters. Engineers with the transit agency have been taking a close look at the cars after federal officials warned some of the trains are at risk of catching fire. Action News reporter Elizabeth Worthington live in Overbrook this afternoon with a behindthescenes look at these inspections. Elizabeth? Yeah, Brian and Sarah Septa gave us an inside look at the work being done here at the Overbrook maintenance facility. This is one of four regional rail shops within the SEPTA system that is performing these intense inspections on the Silver Liner 4 cars. We'll go through, take off the covers on the outside, underneath, check all the electrical contactors on the equipment. After a string of fires on regional rail trains this year, SEPTA is now following strict federal orders to complete so-called enhanced safety inspections on all 225 of its Silver Liner 4 cars within 30 days. It's tedious work requiring additional training. We're having other people who normally don't do the inspection do the inspection. So that allows us to one have a different set of eyes on the car. So it's been a little slow going to get started. Uh we're probably around 10 or 12 cars through at this point. But without identifying a root cause of the fires, a task both the NTSB and SEPTA have struggled with, Septto officials say this problem won't go away after a month of inspections. This probably is our new reality that we're just going to have to find a way to get these cars uh through this inspection process uh more often. The long-term solution is to replace the entire fleet, but the money just isn't there right now. Governor Shapiro was asked about this at a separate event today. I can tell you that I am working closely with SEPTA to figure out a solution to this. I will not leave them hanging. And SEPTA officials say that they recognize it's been a rough couple of days for riders. A rough couple of weeks that is, but they expect that service will improve and become more predictable as the staff get into a better rhythm and become more efficient with those inspections. We're live in Overbrook tonight, Elizabeth Warthington, Channel 6 Action News. Brian and Sarah. Elizabeth, thank