WASHINGTON — DC Metrorail will return eight trainsets of its 7000-series railcars to service today, a step forward to address an equipment shortage created when the cars were sidelined after an October derailment.
The Washington Post reports the 64 cars are being returned to service under an agreement reached in May, but the return of the entire 748-car fleet is “at least several weeks away.”
The cars returning to operation will initially be used on Metro’s Green and Yellow lines. They will require daily inspections to check for a defect that causes wheels to shift on their axles — the problem which led to the derailment in October. That, in turn, caused all 748 of the Kawasaki-built 7000-series cars, about 60% of the Metrorail fleet, to be removed from service.
A few of the cars were briefly put back in operation last December, but were again withdrawn after the independent Washington Metrorail Safety Commission found Metrorail was not meeting its inspection criteria [see “DC Metrorail 7000-series cars again removed …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 30, 2021].
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