WMATA car rolls off with doors open
Yesterday on Metro's Orange Line, a new 5000-series CAF rail car left Metro Center with its doors open. A passenger used the intercom to notify the operator. The train rolled about ten feet before the operator braked it and offloaded the train. Metro is now running all the new cars manually.
The new 5000 cars have been plagued with a number of problems in their electronic systems, including many door problems. I was once aboard a Green Line train when it arrived Greenbelt. The doors opened normally, and people started stepping off. Before opening fully, though, the doors suddenly slammed shut, trapping a woman between them. The doors reversed themselves open again about ten seconds later.
The article leaves questions unanswered. There are red lights on each rail car that illuminate, in the operator's sight, when the doors are open. Were these lights functioning normally? If so they would have alerted the operator to the problem. Also, the article suggests that doors automatically close when trains are run automatically. This is not true--they open automatically, but the operator shuts the doors. How will switching to manual operation solve this problem?
The new cars are less reliable than their 1000-series Rohr counterparts, which are over twenty years old.
Post Author:
massysett | 12:58 PM |
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