Rail Car Problems Delay Metro Relief

Twelve new cars delivered to Metro are being tested but will be delayed being put into service because 10 have to be retrofitted with a new center pin. They will include more room to enter and exit. (Photos By Linda Davidson -- The Washington Post)

Metro's plan to expand its rail car fleet and ease crowding on the trains has been slowed significantly by problems in repairing older cars and bringing new ones into service, transit officials say, increasing the likelihood that the system will be unable to cope with its growing ridership later this year.

The structural and mechanical problems affect more than one-third of the cars in the fleet or in production and have pushed back the planned expansion by at least four months. Instead of having 100 new cars ready for service by the end of the year, Metro estimates it will have half that.

The logistics of scheduling the repairs threaten Metro's ability to provide relief for passengers crowding onto platforms and trains. If too many cars are out of service on any given day, passengers will wait longer on the platforms, perhaps letting several jammed trains go by before finding one they can squeeze aboard.

Metro operates its rush hour service on a relatively thin margin.

The system needs 758 of its 952 rail cars to run enough trains for the morning and evening rushes. On most weekdays, the system has six to 12 cars available as backups if problems force trains out of service, said Steven A. Feil, Metro's chief operating officer for rail.

"It's not anything to play with," he said. "If we don't meet these challenges, we're going to have some capacity issues to deal with."

Also, the availability of cars could limit the number of eight-car trains Metro had hoped to add by the end of the year. Most service consists of six-car or four-car trains, with some eight-car service on the Orange Line during morning rush.

Metro was counting on having 25 new cars to put into service by the end of June. But cracks in a critical part in the cars being built by Alstom Transportation Inc. have created a major setback.

After the cracks were found, production was halted for four to five weeks. All but two of the 184 cars -- some built, others in production -- must be retrofitted with a newly designed part.

"This will cost us three to five months," said Dan Hanlon, Metro's chief engineer.

Another class of rail car, built by Ansaldo Breda Construzioni Ferroviarie but being rehabilitated by Alstom, is showing strains in part of its primary suspension system.

And cars built by the Spanish company CAF Inc., purchased by Metro in 1998, also have flaws that must be addressed.