To our riders,
“Trust” is SEPTA’s word of 2026. That’s why we want to address the challenges Regional Rail faced on Wednesday, May 20.
Although the crises we faced in 2025 and early 2026 have mostly subsided, we know it will take many days of steady, reliable and enjoyable travel to re-build the trust that you lost in us on the way.
Part of re-building trust is being accountable when something goes wrong. Regional Rail reliability has seen steady gains since the beginning of the year, and we’re happy that the rider experience is again improving. We hear that from you every day about on-time performance, car availability and crew courtesy.
That being said, we did not meet our standards of service delivery yesterday, May 20, as the region dealt with high heat and a major thunderstorm. Within minutes, we experienced downed trees and power loss across the five-county area. SEPTA and Amtrak crews were mobilized immediately, but it still meant a messy and unpredictable commute for many. Earlier in the day, high heat necessitated a system-wide speed restriction, and also a brush fire briefly shut down service completely on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, disrupting the Trenton Line, among other challenges.
Immediately following the storm, our crews were quickly dispatched to three separate locations with downed trees in the overhead electrical lines. We were able to either continue service with delays or safely move impacted trains to stations where alternate means of transportation could be found.
One particular train, 5344, was stopped near Malvern for multiple hours while Amtrak responded to numerous downed trees causing the loss of power on the Paoli/Thorndale Line. While SEPTA provides service on the Paoli/Thorndale Line, the tracks and overhead power are owned, operated and maintained by Amtrak. Unfortunately, the location of this train in relation to the downed tree complicated the situation and careful planning was required between Amtrak and SEPTA before we could safely move the train to a station to be unloaded.
If you were on train 5344 last night, we’d like to hear from you– please call SEPTA Customer Service at 215-580-7800 and identify yourself as a 5344 passenger.
I want to thank the many SEPTA staff who moved swiftly yesterday to keep everyone safe. They worked fast to respond to and communicate about a rapidly changing situation in real time, and we’re grateful for their diligent service. Some of their efforts include:
- Posting an alert to SEPTA.org and the SEPTA App in the morning and warning of a chance of severe weather later that day.
- Encouraging Regional Rail passengers to know their alternative bus and metro routes of travel, since those networks are less vulnerable to outages during storms.
- Keeping delays and line suspensions listed and up to date at septa.org/alerts.
- Mobilizing crews and contractors to address downed trees and repair wires.
- Implementing a service recovery plan to ensure trains were available for the morning commute.
That doesn’t meant there still isn’t room to improve. We will work to strengthen our coordination efforts with Amtrak to lessen the duration of these types of events, with the safety of both employees and customers being our top priority.
If you were impacted by yesterday’s disruptions and would like to share recommendations for improvement or commendations to SEPTA staff on how they handled a difficult day, please call SEPTA Customer Service at 215-580-7800.
As always, we’re proud to serve the region and will strive to consistently deliver the service our riders deserve.
Scott A. Sauer
General Manager, SEPTA