Keep an eye out for SEPTA FESTIBUSES roaming your neighborhood for the first time ever this holiday season.
Decorated SEPTA vehicles pick up passengers beginning this week thru Wednesday, December 31. You can track them here!
Teams of SEPTA employees from Comly, Frankford, Midvale, Southern, and Victory bus districts along with colleagues at Callowhill, Elmwood, and Woodland trolley districts worked for weeks to deck out buses and trolleys in festive decor as part of an annual tradition at the Authority.
The vehicles were decorated for the annual SEPTA Holiday Vehicle Competition which returned for its 11th year at Frankford District last week.
Teams decorated their vehicles to match winter classics like Frosty the Snowman. There are also buses decked out in themes like Santa Paws and Care Bears complete with actual fuzzy friends onboard!
Operators from Frankford District donned Care Bear onesies and hyped up the crowd, Comly District employees impersonated Alice and her Wonderland pals including the Mad Hatter and Caterpillar, and Beetlejuice grooved to Harry Belafonte in Southern District’s entry with a spooky tribute to the Tim Burton hit.
Midvale’s “National Lampoon’s Holiday” won the competition with their homage to National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. The bus welcomed judges with a with a cutout of Clark Griswold and a faux-desiccated Christmas turkey as the center of a holiday spread along with an electrified Griswold wrapped in holidays lights bidding viewers goodbye on the back.
Frankford’s Care Bear “Holiday Party Bus” and Victory’s “Best Gift Ever” invoking classic holiday shopping experiences at department stores of yore finished second and third respectively.
The buses had their public debut on December 6 and 7 at LOVE Park for a People’s Choice Vote— where Comly District’s “Christmas and Wonderland” was crowned the winner.
Check out the full list of competing teams and their themes below.
Trolley
- Callowhill – Frosty Snow Mobile
- Elmwood – Home Alone
- Woodland – Star Wars
Bus
- Callowhill – Santa Paws
- Comly – Christmas in Wonderland
- Frankford – Care Bear’s Holiday Party Bus
- Midvale – National Lampoon’s Holiday
- Southern – Beetlejuice
- Victory – The Best Gift Ever
Snap a pic of yourself riding a FESTIBUS (or trolley) and tag @septaphilly on Instagram. See if you can ride them all! You can track them here!