Metro officials are considering a $177 million contract this week to rehabilitate a swath of the aging Red Line, but none of the work is slated to address the problems along a stretch of track where one train recently slammed into another, killing nine and injuring more than 70 people.
The National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation into the deadly June 22 crash has pinpointed a malfunctioning track circuit and a data transmitter that help locate trains and stop them before they run into each other. It appears the system may have failed to show the stopped train on the tracks, causing the traveling train to run along the curving track at normal speed and slam into the one in front of it.
But in the area between the Fort Totten and Takoma stations where the crash occurred, the agency said its rehab project would work on the public address system and closed circuit televisions, the power rooms that help run the system, the platforms tiles, and track fencing and station signs.
Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel said the investigation into the crash could take up to a year and the system needs to continue with other critical maintenance projects such as crumbling platforms at the Shady Grove station or the troublesome escalators at Dupont Circle. “We still have to stay focused,” he said.
It still is not clear what the transit system needs to do to fix the problems that led to the crash.
“We could just replace the parts, but we need to understand what caused it,” General Manager John Catoe said last week. “You don’t just change the parts. We must find the cause.”
The transit system has been planning for years to rehabilitate a stretch of the Red Line from Dupont Circle to Silver Spring that includes its oldest section of the rail system. The board of directors decided to move ahead with the plan last year, and now the system has federal stimulus money to help pay for it.
“The timing with this is we want to get it started,” Taubenkibel said.
If the rehab project is approved, it likely would mean significant slowdowns for riders. The plan calls for running trains along a single track in some stretches Sunday through Thursday nights, starting as early as 8 p.m. Much of the work would not begin until the beginning of next year, Taubenkibel said.
That will be more of the same for Red Line riders, who have been grappling with delays since the crash.
