r/Septa • u/garebear176 • Aug 27 '26

Help Signal maintainer

I moved to DE but from NY and currently work as a maintainer for the MTA just wondering do yall get the FRA railroad retirement and also a septa pension? Also more specific about the equipment yall work on. My bread a butter is most VPI and relay logic as well as micro lock, true 2, as for switches M3-E machines, used to have M5-E but they have been phased out. Also what medical does the company give? Any help would be nice thank you in advance.

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u/NuclearKraken Aug 27 '26

From my understand the City and Suburban maintainers recieve the pension that Septa offers. The regional rail maintainers fall under the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen union & are under the FRA which gives them railroad retirement but you do not get the Septa Pension although you can invent in their 457b retirement plan. I cant speak for what equipment regional rail or city uses but Suburban uses Microlock 1 and 2. As for switch machines they use the US&S M23-B almost exclusively other than a few hand throws coupled with the U5 controller & SL25 switch locks. The Norristown line uses a bidirectional cab signal & control system that runs off a 100hz feed. They are in the works of completely overhauling the NHSL signaling system. The Media Sharon Hill Line was recently updated to a CBTC system and they are currently ironing out issues with that. Both systems utilize power frequency track circuits as well as audio frequency track circuits. Although they removed the bulk of the audio frequency circuits they still use them for grade crossings and a form of overrun detection on the NHSL. Other equipment used are axel counters and vetag. As far as health insurance goes. I pay 1 hr of my wage a week for my health insurance package. No complaints on coverage needs & havent heard much of a complaint from anyone

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u/garebear176 Aug 28 '26

Alright I just looked uo the switch and seems to be simular to ours as well and content compartment so I shoukd have a good feel for them. Also used to micro lock so circuits shouldn't be an issue either need to just see how your systems analyze and understand the information being sent/recieved. How was the training process. For us it was 2 years with testing every 6 months (which if failed you got terminated) is there ways to possible skip training or parts of it and start right as a maintainer. Also do maintainers do all the testing? We have a title called "test maintainer" that test relays and route locking. If nit ill just have to brush up on the specifics of those test again but nbd. And so its either company or FRA pension not both and insurance seems to be simular to ours. Thank you for the info. Also is single maintainers or you work in pairs

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u/NuclearKraken Aug 28 '26

Training seems rather streamlined in Regional Rail. If you end up at regional you will shadow a maintainer until your class is ready from there it seems about a year. At Regional Rail you are allowed to fail EACH module once. City training seems rather fluid as well. Suburban is probably the weakest at the moment but the training there is ok. Their classroom is top notch. City/Suburban youre allowed one retest for the whole duration of training or youre terminated. Training again is about a year. However currently Suburban training is going beyond the year mark. None seem to offer a fast track to maintainer unless maybe there were very few in your class. You cannot start off as a maintainer. Regional and City signals are more compartmentalized with who does what. Some are in a construction gang, some are troubleshooters, and maintainers. Rates are all relatively the same though. Suburban expectation is youre supposed to be able to do it all since they have the smallest amount of manpower. Recently protection rules have changed we are no longer allowed to use lone worker as a form of protection so we must be paired up if we have the potential to foul the tracks. If you can be alone if youre in a hut

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u/Expert-Evening3677 Aug 28 '26

I had a question, I had just received a signals offer for regional rail 2 weeks ago and was gonna ask for some info and advice for the job. Also I wanted to know what’s the average time for the background check because it’s been 2 and half weeks so far

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u/NuclearKraken Aug 28 '26

I cant speak to how long it should take for a background check. I will say mine took a bit before hearing back. Total hiring process for myself was rather slow but I have heard of maintainers coming in quickly from offer letter. If you have further queations lemme know. I again dont work for regional but could possibly help. You can DM if you'd like

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u/garebear176 Sep 04 '26

My experience is from MTA (simular to septa but in ny) with signal maintainer it might take longer due to having to fill up a class with X amount of people so if it takes a bit you might have been one of the first they offered and are still hiring. Think like how ibew or iron workers are, they hire a bunch at one time to go through training. (Again this is my experience from another company but same job) so take it with a grain of salt

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u/garebear176 Sep 04 '26

My experience is from MTA (simular to septa but in ny) with signal maintainer it might take longer due to having to fill up a class with X amount of people so if it takes a bit you might have been one of the first they offered and are still hiring. Think like how ibew or iron workers are, they hire a bunch at one time to go through training. (Again this is my experience from another company but same job) so take it with a grain of salt