Metro News Release

For immediate release: September 7, 2005

Broken spring caused train door to open

Metrorail officials replaced a broken spring in the door of a railcar today after it was discovered to have caused a leaf of one set of train doors to slide open while the train was in motion.

"We found the cause of the incident and fixed the problem immediately. Our passengers should continue to feel safe riding in our system," said Fred Goodine, Metro’s Assistant General Manager for Safety and Risk Protection.

At 5:12 p.m. yesterday, September 6, the console of the four-car Orange Line train headed from Foggy Bottom to Rosslyn flashed, signaling that all of the doors were not closed. When that happened, the train automatically stopped, as it is designed to do when it detects that a door leaf is not locked. When the train came to a stop, the doors were "re-enabled" to do the last thing that the doors were commanded to do, which was to close; when the train stopped, the doors closed again.

Simultaneously, a passenger reported a door problem to the train operator. The train operator conducted a walk-around the train to look for any doors that might be opened, but all were closed. The train operator took the train to Rosslyn, where customers were off-loaded and the train was taken to the rail yard for further investigation.

Today Metro’s engineers and safety officials determined that the steel spring on door number 11 in railcar number 4073 broke, which caused yesterday’s incident.

The springs on the railcar doors are tested every 30 days during a rigorous test designed to push open the doors and block them from closing. An additional visual inspection of the door springs are conducted once every 180 days. These inspections are consistent with the manufacturer’s recommendation.

A broken door spring is extremely rare, and Metro conducts regular tests to ensure that they are in good condition. The broken spring is being tested by Metro and the door manufacturer to determine why it broke.

Metro officials are also checking the door springs on the remaining rail cars in its 4000-series rail car models, of which it has 100, as an added precaution.

News release issued on September 7, 2005.