Officials say they failed to fix problem due to lack of funding
Metro knew about problems with its brakes falling apart on one type of rail car since 2006, when two failures occurred, and even created a plan to replace all the equipment on nearly 190 train cars.
But the agency failed to swap out the equipment because of a lack of funding, Metro officials told board members on Thursday.
And then the agency kept the rail cars running even though the 10- to 12-year life span of the equipment had expired, running on what one board member called “borrowed time.”
On Dec. 20, those same brake parts broke again. A piece known as a “friction ring” that is like a brake disc fell off a 5000-series car, causing damage to two other trains and stranding about 300 riders underground for more than two hours in what has been called a “catastrophic” type of failure.
“You had a safety defect fall through the cracks,” Metro board member Mortimer Downey told The Washington Examiner. “This is not what you want.”
It’s not clear what happened in 2006 to the brake parts, or whether riders were on the trains. But the incidents raised a red flag.
“Someone should have been there with their hair on fire,” Downey told the agency Thursday.
It took the manufacturers a couple of years to analyze the problem, according to Metro. The agency then planned to overhaul all of the 5000-series rail cars in 2009, including newly designed rail hubs. But it didn’t happen.
“Underinvestment did not allow it,” Metro Deputy General Manager Dave Kubicek said.
Metro officials tried to defuse concerns about the safety aspects of the problem. “Service has been safe,” General Manager Richard Sarles told reporters. “I ride every day.”
The agency has replaced all the brake parts on 98 percent of the approximately 190 rail cars of that model, and the remaining few aren’t used to transport riders, Sarles said. Agency officials said the new parts are more robust and will last the lifetime of the rail cars.
The manufacturer, Knorr, has provided the equipment, though Metro is paying for the labor. The agency could not say Thursday how much the work has cost.
Metro plans to replace similar equipment on 184 rail cars of the newer 6000 series starting in July, Kubicek said, and plans to have them finished by the end of the year.
“We don’t want to take a chance,” Kubicek told the board members.
Those rail cars remain in service, but spokesman Dan Stessel says they are inspected daily. They represent about 16 percent of the agency’s fleet.
Meanwhile, the agency is still awaiting a report on what caused a separate break in a 2000-series rail car’s brake system on Jan. 6. Sarles said he expects the report soon but said he doubts it is related to the other incidents as it involved a different style of brake, made of different materials by a different manufacturer.
