Virginia Railway Express is calling on the companies that maintain its trains to step up their inspections after a series of meltdowns last month delayed thousands of commuters.
In a report to the VRE board, Chief Executive Officer Dale Zehner said he met last month with Amtrak officials, who pledged to conduct an independent review of their procedures. Amtrak runs and maintains VRE’s trains.
Zehner also wrote that he asked Amtrak and another firm contracted to maintain the locomotives to expand regular testing of the equipment and document who conducted the tests and when for the commuter trains that run from Manassas and Fredericksburg into the District of Columbia.
Amtrak spokeswoman Karina Romero confirmed that Amtrak officials met with VRE but declined to comment further.
VRE’s push for more rigorous inspections came after a series of failures that began March 17. The shaft of a water pump snapped that day, the report said, delaying one train for two hours and 14 minutes. The VRE report said Amtrak did not follow policy after the train was serviced and failed to have a cable in place to rescue the stalled train.
The next day, two other locomotives failed, causing cancellations of subsequent trains. The agency said the 36-hour spate delayed more than 5,000 people.
The train system had other failures in the next three weeks, as well.
The problems pulled down the train system’s on-time performance for March — a setback for the train service that in January and February had surpassed its goal of more than 90 percent of trains arriving on time for the first time since at least 2005.
Most of the mechanical problems came from engine components such as water pumps or auxiliary generators failing, according to the report.
The system has locomotives as old as 50 years that VRE officials say have outlived their life expectancy.
The service is planning to buy four new locomotives with $9.7 million in federal stimulus money. But the first of the new engines likely won’t come into service until the end of 2010.
