Three stations on Metro’s Orange Line will be closed for Labor Day, the transit system said Tuesday, to allow workers to perform a significant track-maintenance project.
Starting at 10 p.m. Aug. 31, shuttle buses will take passengers between the Cheverly, Landover and New Carrollton stations in Maryland. The stations will open at 5 a.m. Sept. 4, in time for the Tuesday commute. During the closure, workers will replace a rail switch outside of the Cheverly Station.
“When you have to replace an entire switch, it is best to do the work over [a] long holiday weekend when you have the time and ridership tends to be lighter,” said Steven Taubenkibel, a spokesman for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. “The present rail switch is one of the oldest switches in the system. It has been around 30 years and was part of the original construction. It has reached its life expectancy.”
The switch allows trains to change tracks.
If the switch failed, the service disruptions would wreak havoc on the Orange Line and severely delay passengers.
Part of the Blue Line closed in January when crews replaced a 30-year-old track switch at the Arlington National Cemetery Station over the Martin Luther King Day weekend.
Metro planned to perform the Cheverly work a month later, during President’s Day weekend, but inclement weather forced a postponement.
Taubenkibel said tentative plans do not call for any station closings over the upcoming Columbus Day or Veterans Day weekends.
