WaPo's Lori Aratani gets to the bottom of some the causes for continuing delays in the Silver Line's startup:
In November, (MWAA Silver Line Project Manager Pat) Nowakowski told members of the airports authority board
at their monthly meeting that work was continuing and that completion of
the rail line — one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the
country — would probably come at the end of this month.
But he
said it became clear that the timeline could no longer be kept after he
learned the result of tests on the system Thanksgiving week. During
those tests, officials concluded that changes had to be made to the
software that governs what is known as the automatic train control
system (ATC), he said. The software changes required will ensure that
the computers that help run the system communicate clearly with each
other.
The ATC system controls train movement and speed and
ensures proper spacing between trains traveling along the system’s more
than 200 miles of track. If a train is traveling too fast or gets too
close to another train, the system will slow or stop the train if the
operator does not act.
The ATC system is critical to the safe
operation of Metro’s trains. It was the failure of this system to detect
the presence of a train on the tracks that was blamed in part for the
2009 Red Line crash that killed nine people and injured dozens of
others.
This also is not the first time that the Silver Line’s ATC
system has been an issue. In June, one of the nation’s top
transportation officials expressed concern about unauthorized changes
made by Alstom Signaling, the contractor responsible for installing the
system. . . .
Click here to read the rest or Aratani's thorough article.
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