SEPTA's heritage Penn Central Silverliner

John's TrainsOGR Forum Member

I was stopped in my tracks today by the sight of a perpetually-beautiful SEPTA Silverliner IV car - but this one had 70s legacy logos. There was a Penn Central black worms/white background logo together with what is apparently known by some as SEPTA's "meatball" logo. This was on the Trenton Line where I last saw that look in the 70s, and it was a sweet sight. Couldn't get a photo. This may have been mentioned here previously, but I couldn't find it in a forum search. Just this moment though I found that Septa had it on their Instagram. It's the 50th anniversary for the Silverliner IV, so they made legacy units for PC and Reading. One fond memory I have of these cars before they even made it to Philadelphia was when I saw a number of them sitting in the yard at Renovo, the former PRR facility in north-central Pennsylvania, on their way from GE's Erie plant to Philadelphia.

9/5/244:24 PM

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GG1 4877OGR Forum Member SUPPORTING MEMBERDIGITAL SUBSCRIBER

There have been several roads done. Railpace magazine had a brief paragraph and photos about these cars in a recent issue, but I found this link online.

I have always loved the look of the Silverliner I's with the rounded window sides. However, growing up in NJ I knew these cars as Arrow cars and the ones I saw the most were Arrow III's when electrification came south to Long Branch in 1988. I would love to have scale models of EMU cars, but it is certainly a niche market.

https://philadelphiatransitveh...heritage-mus-trains/

9/5/245:28 PM

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John's TrainsOGR Forum Member

@GG1 4877 posted:
...I have always loved the look of the Silverliner I's with the rounded window sides. ... I would love to have scale models of EMU cars, but it is certainly a niche market...

When I think early Silverliner I automatically jump to "green windows." At least some of the Is, IIs, or IIIs (?) in Philadelphia had green-tinted Plexiglas if my memory is correct.

The online SEPTA store has some static display models of the early Silverliners in 0 and what looks like H0, but not in my budget.

John

9/5/246:46 PM

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BBasalikOGR Forum Member

I was in the SEPTA store the other week picking up one of the box cars they were selling. In their model cabinet they had O-Scale kits of both a Market-Frankford 60s EL car and a Silverliner II.
Unfortunately they were out of both kits and only had the display models.

Both models were full scale and apparently came either painted or unpainted. The Silverliner II model looked like an easy conversion to powered 3 rail if one wanted to.

9/5/246:52 PM

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