Metro News Release
For immediate release: June 17, 2005
Metro’s Board of Directors Approves Further Upgrades to the Rail System
Metro’s Board of Directors yesterday approved a series of enhancements to the Metrorail system that will improve safety and service reliability over the next several years. These overall enhancements will help preserve the structural integrity of the various systems and stations and ultimately extend the life of these important structures.
One project involves upgrading Metro’s automatic train protection (ATP) system, and remote terminal units (RTU) inside the system’s control rooms.
Automatic train protection is responsible for maintaining safe train operations throughout the system. ATP allows Metro to monitor where trains are in the system at any given time, allows trains to operate at safe distances, and monitors the actual speed of the trains. The remote terminal units are communication devices located inside vital train control rooms and provide a vital link between Metro’s operations control center and wayside track equipment.
The total cost to upgrade the automatic train protection circuits at 22 train stations and to replace 35 RTU’s is $17.6 million and will be funded through the Metro Matters funding agreement that was approved last year.
The Metro Board also approved a series of structural rehabilitation enhancements for the Metrorail system. These enhancements include station tile and platform rehabilitation at Vienna/Fairfax-GMU, East Falls Church and the Dunn Loring-Merrifield stations; painting the pedestrian bridge at the Vienna/Fairfax-GMU Metrorail station; repairing the aerial structures on the Orange Line between Dunn Loring-Merrifield and West Falls Church-VT/UVA and the Red Line between Grosvenor-Strathmore and the Medical Center Metrorail stations; rehabilitating right-of-way fences at several locations; and modernizing the Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan, Cleveland Park, Tenleytown and Friendship Heights Metrorail stations.
The total cost of these enhancements is $5.9 million.
News release issued on June 17, 2005.