Reston Spring

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Reston Spring

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Fixing Metro's Silver Line may take a year, but trains running by summer possible, FOX 5, April 16, 2014

We missed this news item from FOX 5's John Henrehan, but it suggest how the Silver Line Phase 1 might proceed.
DULLES, Va. -The manager of the Silver Line project says communications devices along the roadbed are not reliable enough. He has proposed a "Plan B" fix, but that fix may take a year.

A spokesperson at Metro says the transit agency could still run trains to the new stations, but only if human operators are stationed in a control room along the right-of-way.

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which is overseeing the Silver Line project, has only a week to decide whether to accept the rail line from the companies that built it. . .
Dan Stessel, a spokesperson for Metro, told us replacing the circuit boards could take as long as a year, but Metro could still run trains on the Silver Line. According to Stessel, the Airports Authority has agreed to pay Metro to staff (with a human) the train control room on the new Silver Line right-of-way. That would last until all the circuit boards are replaced.
Well, the week has long since passed and we still haven't heard a word from MWAA, DTP, or WMATA on the status of the Silver Line's "substantial completion."  If this report is correct about proceeding without a fix of the RTU problem (which seems almost certain), the line may run like like rail and subway lines did a half-century ago--with visual control over the trains--for at least a year. 

And, by the way, of any extra costs MWAA agrees to pay WMATA for staffing, MWAA will actually pay only 4% of while DTR users will pay half under the inequitable "Funding Partners" agreement.  The rest will be paid by Fairfax and Loudoun counties.


Click here for the rest of this article and the associated video. 

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