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Rail News Home Passenger Rail

6/26/2009



Rail News: Passenger Rail

WMATA to inspect all signal circuits following Red Line crash


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The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) will inspect about 3,000 signaling circuits in its Metrorail system in the wake of Monday's Red Line collision, which caused nine fatalities and about 80 injuries.

WMATA safety and operations officials are working with the National Transportation Safety Board to investigate the cause of the accident. Yesterday, federal investigators announced they found "anomalies" in a 750-foot-long circuit that's part of the electronic control system near the crash site. Investigators are trying to determine whether a circuit malfunction might have caused one Red Line train to crash into another just north of the Fort Totten station.

The track circuits are part of a signal system that sends information, authorization and speed commands to trains. WMATA officials aren't certain if the circuits caused the crash, but will inspect them nonetheless, according to a prepared statement. The inspections will take several weeks. In the meantime, WMATA is operating trains manually rather than using the automatic train-control system.

In addition, the agency plans to replace its oldest rail cars, which are about 35 years old.