Metro crash causes at least $9M in damage

FALLS CHURCH, Va. - The latest Metro crash caused at least $9 million in damage as one train smashed into the back of a parked train at the West Falls Church rail yard.

The crash just before 4:30 a.m. Sunday injured three Metro workers and destroyed three train cars.

In addition to the three destroyed cars, nine other cars had some damage. Metro plans to examine them to deterime whether they can be repaired.

Metro Spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein says six-car train 902 -- coming back from Saturday night service -- crashed into the last car of another six-car train that was stopped in the rail yard.

"The train that was struck had two employees who were cleaning the rail car who received minor and non-life threatening injuries."

The crew was waiting for Train 902 to pull in to be cleaned.

The train operator also was hurt in the crash. The operator has been a Metro employee since May 2007 and a train operator since November 2008. He was finishing his shift when the accident took place.

Fairfax Fire Spokesman Dan Schmidt says it took about an hour to get them out of the trains.

"The trains that collided were behind another set of trains. We had to make sure the train tracks were not electrified."

The injured workers have been treated and released from the hospital.

Farbstein says many questions are unanswered.

"They will look at the event recorders, they will take measurements, they will investigate, look at the tracks, the track structure, they will look at the rail cars and the maintenance on the rail cars."

Train speed inside the rail yard is typically 15 miles per hour or less. Metro service has not been affected. Metro was closed at the time so the train was not carrying passengers.

The crash is the latest in a series of incidents putting the region's subway system under intense scrutiny. A June crash killed nine people and left 80 injured after two trains collided on Metro's Red Line when the computer system controlling train signals failed.

A track repairman was killed in August when he was struck by a piece of track equipment.

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