WASHINGTON — The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) announced Friday that more of the 7000-series train cars will be added back to service starting Sept. 12.
WMATA called the news a "significant step" in restoring all 7000-series railcars and improving train frequency for all commuters. The addition of up to 20 of the new railcars was approved by the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission (WMSC), which is an increase from the current limit of eight trains.
"WMSC has no technical objections to Metrorail’s revised plan submitted this afternoon," WMSC said in a release.
The return to service plan allows Metro to inspect 234 cars 24,000 times. The plan was developed based on data analysis accumulated from more than 860,000 miles of train travel, WMATA said.
Officials claim no returned 7000-series trains have failed daily back-to-back measurements and Metro is also working to develop drive-thru technology on the tracks which would stream real-time data about all railcars. Any car that showed wheel measurement changes will be removed from the fleet.
Metro reports the 7000-series cars are nearly four times less likely to become disabled than older cars, reducing the risk of evacuation.
The NTSB found defects in several of the 7000 series railcars while investigating the derailment of a Blue Line railcar (train 407) on Oct. 12, 2021. During that incident, almost 200 people were safely evacuated from a derailed Metro Blue Line train near Arlington Cemetery.
In Dec. 2021, WMATA announced plans to gradually return the 7000-series cars back to service. Less than a month later the railcars were pulled after an issue was found in at least five of the 70 cars.
WMATA says this is just the first step toward restoring the entire fleet following an October derailment and federal investigation.
