- The Washington Times - Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Northern Virginia commuters are girding for the longest interruption of subway service since Metro launched its yearlong “SafeTrack” overhaul in June.

From Sept. 15 to Oct. 26 — a total of 42 days — Orange Line trains will single-track continuously on weekdays between Vienna and West Falls Church to allow Metro workers to repair tracks and replace deteriorating parts. Metro said there will be normal service at other Orange Line stations.

“Orange Line trains may be very crowded, especially during rush hour due to severe service reduction,” Metro warned on its website of the ninth SafeTrack surge. “Expect significantly longer wait times.”

Shuttle trains will operate between Vienna and West Falls Church every 24 minutes; they usually run every six minutes during rush hour. Customers who normally use Vienna or Dunn Loring should consider alternate boarding locations or use other travel options, Metro said.

Riders on that segment of the Orange Line will be out of luck on the weekends: The Vienna, Dunn Loring and West Falls Church stations will be closed during the weekends of Sept. 24-25 and Oct. 1-2. Free shuttle buses will replace trains between the Vienna and East Falls Church stations 7 a.m. Saturdays through closing on Sundays.

On the weekends of Oct. 8-9 and Oct. 15-16, the Vienna and Dunn Loring stations will be closed. Free shuttle buses will replace trains between the Vienna and West Falls Church stations from 7 a.m. Saturdays through closing on Sundays.

Under SafeTrack, the transit agency has decreased service hours, closed line segments and implemented single-tracking so that repairs can be completed outside of regular maintenance hours.

But not everything has gone smoothly. Federal officials have hammered Metro for not adhering to safety rules and shoddy repair work during the overhaul. And riders have been left wondering why delays continue on segments of the subway that have been fixed.

In July the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), which has direct oversight of Metro’s rail system, issued a report detailing 109 defects found after repairs during the first two phases of SafeTrack.

The FTA didn’t detail the defects found after the June repairs to the Orange and Silver lines and the July repairs to the Blue, Orange and Silver lines, but released a statement saying most of the findings were safety failures.

Riders were treated to more service delays around the Stadium-Armory station after more than two weeks of repairs during the second phase of SafeTrack, which included repairing track switches.

Metro blamed the problems on a faulty switch and the inability to pin down the cause of the switch failure. Officials later said debris on the tracks caused the switch to trip a red light signal that operations workers had to manually override from the main control room.

In late July a Silver Line train derailed during a Friday morning rush hour at the East Falls Church station. Track conditions caused rails to be too far apart. One passenger was injured and 60 were evacuated.

In mid-August the FTA again cited Metro for inspection failures. The federal agency found 19 track locations that needed to be fixed immediately or taken out of service. WAMU Radio first reported and obtained data on the FTA investigation.

The WAMU story said some of the trouble spots were in crossovers and interlocking areas where trains run at restricted speeds, but others were in areas like the Eastern Market station, where rail cars carry passengers at much higher speeds.

This summer’s problems prompted Metro’s Board of Directors to hold a special meeting in late August, when the panel normally takes a break from monthly meetings.

At the meeting, Metro officials said they were making changes to the track inspections to ensure that derailments and other safety issues won’t recur. Metro said it’s rewriting its track-inspection manual and has hired six Federal Railroad Administration inspectors to lead a team to survey the condition of all 117 miles of subway tracks by January.

• Ryan M. McDermott can be reached at rmcdermott@washingtontimes.com.

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