About 300 Metro riders were stuck underground waiting in dark rail cars for more than two hours Tuesday morning and thousands more saw their commutes delayed after a piece of a train broke off, damaging two following trains and bringing the Blue and Orange lines to a standstill.
</div> <p><span class=”BodyCopy”>The sequence of breakdowns left some riders stuck on smoky trains or forced to walk into tunnels. It began when a friction ring that is part of the train’s brake system fell from a rail car, according to Metro. Service between Metro Center and Federal Center SW was stopped in both directions and wasn’t fully restored for more than four hours. No one was reported injured.</span></p> <p><span class=”BodyCopy”>That wasn’t Metro’s only problem on a bad Tuesday morning for the transit agency. A Metro train had an unrelated brake malfunction on the Blue Line at Arlington Cemetery, causing significant delays at Franconia and Huntington. Red Line riders also suffered in the morning commute after a man was found on the tracks near Judiciary Square.</span></p> <p><span class=”BodyCopy”>General Manager Richard Sarles pledged to investigate what went wrong Tuesday and how Metro handled the problems and communicated with riders. All of the rail cars of the CAF 5000 series that lost the equipment will be inspected.</span></p><div style=”float: right; width: 420px;”> <object width=”410″ height=”300″> <param name=”flashvars” value=”offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2F71440963%40N06%2Fsets%2F72157628503763111%2Fshow%2F&page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2F71440963%40N06%2Fsets%2F72157628503763111%2F&set_id=72157628503763111&jump_to=”/><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=109615″/><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”/><embed type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” src=”http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=109615″ allowfullscreen=”true” flashvars=”offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2F71440963%40N06%2Fsets%2F72157628503763111%2Fshow%2F&page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2F71440963%40N06%2Fsets%2F72157628503763111%2F&set_id=72157628503763111&jump_to=” width=”400″ height=”300″/></object></div> <p><span class=”BodyCopy”>”We apologize to the passengers and customers who were inconvenienced,” he said.</span></p> <p><span class=”BodyCopy”>The major problems on the Blue and Orange lines began shortly before 9:45 a.m.</span></p> <p><span class=”BodyCopy”>A Blue Line train heading west lost the friction ring near L’Enfant Plaza. The train let off its riders at Smithsonian and returned to the rail yard. But behind it, an Orange Line train hit the ring. <a href=”http://twitter.com/#!/Peter_H_Urban/status/149184826090602496″>Commuter Peter Urban was sitting by the window</a> in the second-to-last car of that train when he said it hit something just as it pulled out of L’Enfant Plaza. Sparks flew 5 or 6 feet high, he said. The train then kept going and stopped just 500 feet shy of the Smithsonian station.</span></p> <p><span class=”BodyCopy”>Officials shut down power to the area after they realized something was wrong, Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said.</span></p> <p><span class=”BodyCopy”>That brought a third train to a standstill in the tunnel just east of the L’Enfant Plaza station. It, too, had apparently hit something that damaged it. Riders on that train were able to evacuate by walking through the train onto the station platform.</span></p> <p><span class=”BodyCopy”>But Urban and the other riders on the other Orange Line train were stuck. He said it took about 20 minutes or so to learn what happened. Riders called bosses on cell phones or communicated their plight on Twitter, letting the public know they were still trapped — even after Metro officials told </span><span class=”BodyCopy” style=”font-style:italic;”>The Washington Examiner</span><span class=”BodyCopy”> that all riders had been evacuated.</span></p> <div style=”float: right; width: 490px;”> <iframe width=”480″ height=”280″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/DBInnHO07FM” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=””/></div><p><span class=”BodyCopy”>The events caused traffic aboveground to come to a standstill as well, as more than 75 firefighters rushed to the area. Shortly before noon, the last riders were evacuated from the Smithsonian station, with riders walking through dark trains into the tunnels. Delays continued until 2:30 p.m.</span></p> <p><span class=”BodyCopy”>It is not clear why the brake piece fell from the train. The rail car, the 5012, was last inspected Dec. 8, Stessel said.</span></p> <p><span class=”BodyCopy”>The transit agency will continue to run the 190 cars of the 5000 series during the brake inspection process. Metro had no estimate for how long it will take to test them.</span></p> <p><span class=”BodyCopy”>The cars are less than 15 years old. But they had the second-worst track record for breakdowns between April 2010 and March 2011, behind only the 4000 series, according to Metro’s latest published statistics. The trains are not slated to be replaced or overhauled until 2022, Stessel said.</span></p> <p><span class=”EndEmailTag” style=”font-style:italic;”><em><a href=” mailto:[email protected] “>[email protected]</a></em></span></p>
