BREAKING: service suspended bet. E. Market & L'Enfant

There is no service between Eastern Market and L'Enfant Plaza during this evening commute because of a track problem at Federal Center SW, which is reported to be a track fire. There was another track fire there approx. 9 hours ago.

Update: Federal Center SW & Capitol South stations closed.

Update:

http://wtop.com/sprawl-crawl/2016/05/me ... m/slide/1/

"Metro says service will not be restored on its Blue, Orange and Silver lines between Eastern Market and L’Enfant Plaza for the rest of Thursday. Also, Metro has ordered the Federal Center SW station remain closed for the rest of Thursday for a full third-rail insulator replacement."

NBCWash has a video of THIS MORNING'S electrical incident at Federal Center SW. https://www.facebook.com/nbcwashington/ ... 457713606/. Clearly, whatever happened this morning kept on happening.

JDC wrote:NBCWash has a video of THIS MORNING'S electrical incident at Federal Center SW. https://www.facebook.com/nbcwashington/ ... 457713606/. Clearly, whatever happened this morning kept on happening.

Wiedefeld is on NBC right now, stating that he had already planned to close Federal Center and Capital South (after consulting with various entities) this evening after rush hour in order to replace all of the porcelain insulators, which he blames for exploding vs smoldering like the newer ones. This evening's fire was actually just track debris, according to him. However, with both incidents one after another, he escalated the closure to immediately.

A longer story by the Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/tr ... story.html

As a result of this incident, the FTA has recommended to Metro that it run shorter trains and at slower speeds: https://twitter.com/AdamTuss/status/728990396139851776

JDC wrote:As a result of this incident, the FTA has recommended to Metro that it run shorter trains and at slower speeds: https://twitter.com/AdamTuss/status/728990396139851776

Correction - they were not recommendations, they were emergency orders threatening to shut down all/part of Metro if it does not comply. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/fe ... ge%2Fstory

JDC wrote:As a result of this incident, the FTA has recommended to Metro that it run shorter trains

How does shorter trains solve insulator problems!?!?!?!
If the insulators are so dirty they have leakage current to ground, then NO trains won't stop that....

If WMATA is required to run shorter trains at slow speed will they dump the policy of running 7k cars in 8 car trains only?

Of those critisms by the the FTA, I only agree with the issues addressed to ROCC. Failing to confer and take advice from your resident experts in the field is recipe to repeat the same mistakes.

On the other items, i agree with farecard. Running shorter trains slower won't address your grounding issues. The dirtier your insulators get, the less current is required to cause arcing. If you don't clean your insulators regularly, this WILL happen again, even with two car trains running.

Speaking of grounding, I can tell you that Thursdays incident was not an exploding insulator, it was a grounded stud. Took a look at the insulator midmorning of the incident while the insulator was still there, and no more that 20% of it was melted/damaged. The stud in thr front was gone. The back of the insulator and stud was fine.

If you look at the video of the incident, focus on the top right corner just in the tunnel when the insulator goes. You will see a separate 'explosion'. Sources tell me that the second flare was from a rail fastener stud on the opposite rail. You can yell that from the directionality of the sparks thrown in the explosion. I can't think of many theories where a insulator stud and a rail stud go up at the same time aside from a grounding issue.

"smallfire85"
If you look at the video of the incident, focus on the top right corner just in the tunnel when the insulator goes. You will see a separate 'explosion'. Sources tell me that the second flare was from a rail fastener stud on the opposite rail. You can yell that from the directionality of the sparks thrown in the explosion. I can't think of many theories where a insulator stud and a rail stud go up at the same time aside from a grounding issue.

After the current flash over to the running rail and passed through the cables connecting both running rails to Wee-z bond at the end of the platform track circuit.

GGW has a piece discussing what we know, and don't know, about this insulator explosion. http://greatergreaterwashington.org/pos ... -explosion

"JDC"
GGW has a piece discussing what we know, and don't know, about this insulator explosion.

The problem with that article is it looks at it from an after the fact perspective.

I know what happened, why it happened and what is needed to be done the detect the conditions to prevent it from happening.