By John P. Martin
Washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Friday, September 24, 1999; 12:20 p.m. EDT

The central computer that monitors all Metrorail lines crashed for two hours early this morning, stalling the opening of rail service by 30 minutes and delaying thousands of commuters.

The system was restored by 5:46 a.m. and trains were running by 6 a.m., Metro spokeswoman Cheryl Johnson said. She called delays "significant" but said service was restored to normal before 7 a.m.

The malfunction occurred at 3:35 a.m., when a graphics generating device overloaded on the system that monitors traffic along Metro's 96 miles of track.

It was about two hours before the start of rail service that typically serves about 200,000 Washington area riders each morning.

Metro dispatched dozens of workers to serve as eyes and ears at its 78 stations and to guide its work trains that were stranded on the tracks when the system failed, Johnson said.

A few buses were deployed to shuttle rail passengers, "but buses can never make up for the rail system," she said.

The network was installed nearly four years ago at Metro's headquarters and malfunctioned dozens of times in early 1998. It is comprised of two systems - the monitoring system and one that operates tracks and trains.

Johnson said technicians "figured out what happened, but they didn't figure why."

The problem shouldn't affect the evening commute, she said.

One commuter, Joseph White, complained that the delays caused him to miss a meeting.

"I am tired of being stuck because of Metro's problems," White wrote in an e-mail to washingtonpost.com. "It seems to always catch me at the time when I need it the most."

Others weren't affected by today's disruption.

Arnold Bochner left his Bethesda home 15 minutes earlier than usual after hearing reports of the problems and got to the Grosvenor Metro station just as a train was arriving. Although the car was nearly empty, the ride to his job as a systems engineer in the District was like any other day, Bochner said.

"Everybody was minding their own business like they usually do," he said.