Metro News Release

For immediate release: December 22, 2004

Two new stations experience temporary power outage

Service is back to normal at the Morgan Boulevard and Largo Town Center Metrorail stations this morning following an unexpected power outage last night at a substation that provides electricity to the tracks serving the recently opened stations. The two newest Blue Line stations were closed for several hours last night and for a short time early this morning while customers relied on free shuttle buses to get around the situation.

The inbound power went out at the two new stations serving the Blue Line at 8:26 p.m. yesterday, December 21. Outbound power was lost about a half hour later. Shuttle buses were called in to move passengers in both directions between the Addison Road-Seat Pleasant and the Morgan Boulevard and Largo Town Center Metrorail stations until the rail system closed at midnight. Those shuttle buses carried 375 passengers.

Metro officials worked throughout the night to restore power to the tracks to enable trains to resume servicing the stations this morning.

Early morning service from the Largo Town Center and Morgan Boulevard Metrorail stations began today (December 22) using free shuttle buses from 5 to 6:20 a.m., when power was restored. The morning shuttle buses carried 242 passengers.

During last night’s power outage, a four-car train headed in the direction of Largo Town Center was stuck about 30 to 40 feet from the Morgan Boulevard station when the power went down at about 9 p.m. Eighteen customers were safely escorted off of the train by Metrorail personnel and several Metro Transit Police officers. The last customer was back inside the station by 10:30 p.m.

"We did not originally know how long the problem would last," said Steve Feil, Metro’s Chief Operating Officer for Rail. "Once we realized that it was going to take a while to fix the problem, we decided it was best to get the customers off the train and it took a while to do so. We appreciated their patience during the incident and are sorry that they had to wait as long as they did."

News release issued on December 22, 2004.