Metro has continued to find problems throughout its track sensing system, the same system suspected of failing in last month’s fatal crash, officials said.
The agency acknowledged it has found defects in about “half a dozen” circuits since the crash.
But the transit agency’s general manager insisted that Metro was safe. “If at any time I thought this system was unsafe, I would permanently shut it down,” General Manager John Catoe said. Metro has not “detected any issues that will cause the same type of event that occurred on June 22,” he added.
Nine people were killed and more than 70 people injured in the transit system’s worst crash when a Red Line train plowed into a stopped train near the Takoma station.
A faulty circuit appears to have failed to detect the stopped train. That circuit is the focus of the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation into the crash. It is part of a computerized alert system designed to prevent collisions.
Metro could not specify how many circuits had been removed or adjusted. Nor would officials say where problem circuits were forcing them to take precautions.
A train operator who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation said the transit system has been running just one train at a time in at least two spots on the Orange Line, near Rosslyn and Courthouse stations, and near Cheverly.
Metro would not comment on how many of these “absolute blocks” it is running in the transit system as a precaution. But Catoe acknowledged Metro is running some beyond the area where the crash occurred.
Two weeks ago, Metro had said that all 3,000 circuits tested in the system were fine. Last week, Catoe said in testimony at a congressional oversight hearing that three circuits had problems, two in rail yards and one in the rail system that passengers ride.
“I stick by that story,” Catoe told The Examiner.
The transit system first performed a physical test of each circuit, he said. Now officials are examining computer data that show how the circuits are operating.
Metro has started to check the system twice a day, he said, a boost from the initial daily tests after the crash. Before the June 22 accident, the system was checked monthly. Catoe said that meant Metro was checking the circuits at levels never tested before and making adjustments or taking out equipment for “any little thing we see.”
The Washington Post reported that other circuits “failed to properly detect the presence of trains” in recent weeks. But Catoe called the story a “gross falsification of the facts.”
“If we cannot track our trains, I would shut this system down,” he added.
