Metro Trains Collide on Red Line

Metro's Lisa Farbstein on WTOP. (5:20 a.m.)

WTOP's Mitchell Miller reports Metro's board chairman find the agency's problems exasperating.

WASHINGTON - Metro riders Thursday morning found the commute to work longer than usual as investigators continued to deal with the aftermath of Wednesday's subway crash on the Red Line.

Along the Red Line, Metro ran eight-car trains instead of the usual six-car trains, reduced fares and until 10:30 a.m. offered free bus service from Friendship Heights to Farragut North.

"There will be major delays on the Red Line," said Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein on WTOP before the morning rush. She suggests riders find alternate ways to work.

The accident occurred at the Woodley Park-Zoo station, where an empty subway train rolled backward into a train full of passengers. The two trains that collided in the station will remain on one of the tracks, and trains will run on a single track from Van Ness to Dupont Circle.

The Woodley Park-Zoo station will open for the morning rush hour, although the two trains that collided in the station will remain on one of the tracks as the National Transportation Safety Board investigates. Trains will run on a single track from Van Ness to Dupont Circle.

The accident injured at least 20 people, transit officials said.

The second train, carrying about 70 passengers, had pulled into one of the city's busiest stations moments before the empty train backed into it. Most of the 75-foot-long rear car of the empty train came off the tracks and about one-third of its aluminum shell was pulled apart.

The crash sounded "like nothing you ever heard, like thunder," said Calvert Sawyers, 58, the train operator.

Witnesses said the operator began screaming for people to get off the occupied train a few seconds before the impact.

"The next thing we knew there was a big crash, and a lot of dirt and dust flying everywhere, and panic, and everybody just ran out of the Metro station," said Mike Cucciardl, a teacher traveling on the train with more than 40 kids from a District of Columbia charter school. Thirteen students were among the injured.

None of the injuries was life threatening, said Alan Etter, a fire department spokesman. He called it "astounding," given the force of the crash, that more people weren't more seriously hurt. The worst injury appeared to be a broken leg, he said.

The crash happened after a loaded six-car train pulled into the Woodley Park-National Zoo Metro station at 12:39 p.m., Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel said.

Each train has an automatic control system to keep trains a safe distance apart, Deputy General Manager for Operations James Gallagher said. Officials were looking into whether the system failed.

"The train rolled backward. Trains don't roll backward," he said. "There's something unusual about this event."

Train operators can manually override the automatic braking system, but officials said that would require permission from the operations control center.

Officials said they were questioning the two drivers and examining mechanical records. Damage was estimated at $1.5 million. Officials didn't believe the crash was related to terrorism.

Metro called Sawyers a life saver for ordering the passengers off the train.

Sawyers said there were only seconds to react. "I looked up and saw a train coming backwards down the track," he told WJLA television. "I just called out to the people to get off the train."

The NTSB took control of the scene late Wednesday afternoon. Metro officials said the trains won't be moved until the NTSB completes its probe.

"We have not determined the reason why the train was involved in this reverse roll. We are looking at the braking system, the propulsion system, the repair history, maintenance and track inspection records, crash-worthiness," says Deborah A. P. Hersman, an NTSB member investigating the crash.

Neither train had an event recorder, Hersman said.

However, investigators were hoping to get information about the crash from station surveillance video.

The subway system's last serious crash was in January 1996. An operator was killed after his train slid past an outdoor platform and collided with an out-of-service train during a winter snowstorm.

(Copyright 2004 by WTOP and The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)