Ashlee Woods was one of 300 passengers on a SEPTA train traveling between Philadelphia and Wilmington on Thursday evening when it burst into flames. She says the trip was troubled from the start, arriving at Jefferson Station 30 minutes late.
But it got much worse in Delaware County, where the six-car train caught fire. No one was injured in the blaze, which occurred around 6 p.m. near the Crum Lynne Station in Ridley Park.
A SEPTA spokesperson said it is not clear how the fire started, but that it started underneath the train and quickly engulfed the passenger cars, according to 6ABC.
Woods, an intern at WHYY, said passengers waiting for the 4:26 p.m. to Wilmington were told there was a mechanical issue with the train.
Once the train arrived, she said, she noticed it was not running smoothly.
“So we got on the train and it was moving rather slow,” she said. “It’s not a fast train, but it was moving slower than normal.” And as it proceeded out of the city, it stopped at stations longer than usual.
“Somewhere around, I think Norwood or Ridley Park, I started smelling smoke,” she said.
She said the smell did relent for a bit, then the train stopped between the Ridley Park and Crum Lynne SEPTA stations. Woods said she didn’t realize what was going on at first.
“We just thought we were just stopped to pick up people, but then some of us realized that we weren’t at the station,” she said. “We were still a few feet away from the station, and the [SEPTA employee] comes back and we were like, ‘Well, what’s going on?’ ”
Soon after, Woods saw smoke outside of the car.
“We’re looking outside the window and smoke starts billowing and it’s really thick clouds. We were like, ‘Should we evacuate?’ ” she said. A SEPTA employee told passengers to go as far back on the train as they could.
Woods, who had been in the second car, said it appeared to be the first car that caught fire. While passengers were trying to move back, they were told to evacuate.
The situation did not get easier from there.
“It was pretty much a mess from there because we were trying to figure out buses,” she said. “We were trying to figure out if we were going to get buses down there [to Wilmington], and the buses did finally arrive.”
She said those passengers who ended up taking the buses were “packed” onto the two buses. Many people opted to take Ubers the rest of the way home, but the train was not near other SEPTA stations. This complicated bus travel as well.
“Initially, we were told that both buses would be going to just Wilmington and stopping at Wilmington, making all the stops and ending the route at Wilmington,” she said. “And there were a lot of people, particularly on the bus that I was on, that were going to Churchman’s Crossing station in Newark.”
She said there was some confusion for riders trying to get to other suburbs of Newark as the bus routes didn’t match up for certain areas.
Woods said one bus eventually went to Newark, but she had gotten off earlier when family picked her up.
Regardless, it was a long commute home.
“I got home at 9 o’clock at night after clocking out at 4,” she said.
And she’s curious why the train wasn’t replaced when it was known it had an issue.
“Before the train even left the station, we knew that the train had a mechanical issue and that we were under the impression that it had been fixed, or fixed well enough to where they could safely run the route,” she said.
According to 6ABC, a SEPTA spokesperson said the organization is “investigating and reviewing the steps taken” for the fire, as well as the cause of the fire.
SEPTA did not respond to Billy Penn’s request for an update or comment at the time of the publication of this story.
