Happy Birthday (with WMATA Opening Dates)

[Sand Box John]

On this day in 1976 the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority opened the first 4.5 mile segment of the then planed 100 mile metro system. Today that 100 mile system is 106 miles.

Chronology of openings
03 27 1976: Rhode Island Avenue - Farragut North
12 15 1976: Gallery Place
01 17 1977: Farragut North - Dupont Circle
07 01 1977: National Airport - Stadium-Armory
02 06 1978: Rhode Island Avenue - Silver Spring
11 20 1978: Stadium-Armory - New Carrollton
12 01 1979: Rosslyn Station - Ballston
11 22 1980: Stadium/Armory - Addison Road
12 05 1981: Dupont Circle - Van Ness-UDC
04 30 1983: Gallery Place - National Airport
12 17 1983: National Airport - Huntington
08 25 1984: Van Ness-UDC - Grosvenor
12 15 1984: Grosvenor - Shady Grove
06 07 1986: Ballston - Vienna
09 22 1990: Silver Spring - Wheaton
05 11 1991: Gallery Place - U Street
06 15 1991: King Street - Van Dorn Street
12 28 1991: L'Enfant Plaza - Anacostia
12 11 1993: Ft. Totten - Greenbelt
06 28 1997: Van Dorn Street - Franconia-Springfield
07 25 1998: Wheaton - Glenmont
09 18 1999: U Street - Ft. Totten
01 13 2001: Anacostia - Branch Avenue
11 20 2004: New York Avenue
12 18 2004: Addison Road - Largo Town Center

Errors corrected

[Robert Paniagua]

12 17 1977: Farragut North - Dupont Circle

Actually, that was Jan 17 1977

10 22 1990: Silver Spring - Wheaton

That was instead on Sep 22 1990

But everything else is right, about the openings, and ironically enough, all WMATA traditionally does new revenue runs on Saturdays. One was an exception, don't know which one though

[Sand Box John]

Turns out it wasn't all that happy of a birthday:

At around 1630 the last truck on the last car of the 6 cars train #125 heading to Glenmont on track A1 derailed between Bethesda and Friendship Heights. The operator aboard train #125 reported brake problems not knowing that his train couldn't move because it had derailed. A second train #204 was sent in behind to move the disabled train #125. Before arriving behind #125, train #204 derailed approximately 300' to 400' short of train #125. A third train was backed up to the front of train #125 to remove the passengers aboard train #125.

Both derailments were caused by a broken rail.

WMATA Press release

Media reports:

Two Metro trains derail; no serious injuries
wtop.com
March 27, 2009 - 6:58pm

Two Red Line Trains Derail Near Bethesda Station
Repairs to Damaged Track Likely to Take Until Monday; No Injuries Reported
By Lena H. Sun and Michael Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, March 27, 2009; 8:46 PM

[Robert Paniagua]

Oh wow, that's not very good at all, tht must meant huge delays, thus causing METRO users to take the MARC if it was running, or buses, this was really bad, wow...good thing I wasn't there riding in one of those affected trains

[Sand Box John]

"Robert Paniagua"
Oh wow, that's not very good at all, tht must meant huge delays, thus causing METRO users to take the MARC if it was running, or buses, this was really bad, wow...good thing I wasn't there riding in one of those affected trains

Had I been aboard the last car of train #125, train #204 would not have derailed because I would have used the intercom to tell the operator that part of the last car was on the ground.

[Sand Box John]

Metro on high alert after cracked rail on Red Line
March 30, 2009 - 3:07pm
Adam Tuss, wtop.com

Before Accident, Track Walkers Found No Flaws on Red Line Rail
By Lena H. Sun
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 31, 2009

With so many broken and cracked rail incidents of late, one has to wonder who WMATA is getting it’s rail from and what kind of quality assurance is being done at the mill that is rolling it?

Virtually all of the rail in the system that is over 10 years old has been replaced at least once. The parts of the system that were opened before the mid 1980s have had the rail replaced at least three times. Selected section in curves are replaced at shorter intervals. The turnouts in the mid line crossover interlockings are changed on average ever 10 to 11 years, twice as often in the terminal interlockings.

All of the mill marks that I have seen on the rail in system came out of Bethlehem Steel Steelton, the youngest being 11 2000 in Branch Avenue Yard. When I did my construction tour of the G Route Blue line back in 2003 none of the rail had mill marks on it. They did have UPC labels on the rail but no date or mill name.

For those interested in reading the mill marks. Here an example:



155 = 115lbs per yard.
PE CC Not sure what PE CC means, have never seen it on other rail used by WMATA.
BETH STEELTON Bethlehem Steel Steelton, Harrisburg, PA.
2000 Year rolled.
||||||||||| each bar represent month, 11 bars = November.

Believe or not I saw an 1898 mill mark on active track in Mojave Yard in Mojave, CA back in 1989.

[Robert Paniagua]

Wow, they need to replace those rails, if they are getting old, so that these derailments don't happen too often

[polybalt]

155 = 115lbs per yard.
PE CC Not sure what PE CC means, have never seen it on other rail used by WMATA.
BETH STEELTON Bethlehem Steel Steelton, Harrisburg, PA.
2000 Year rolled.
||||||||||| each bar represent month, 11 bars = November.

115 RE ( not PE) is the name of the rail section. RE means the section was designed orginally by the American Railway Engineering Association ( AREA).

CC stands for control cooled. This leads to higher quality rail.

BTW, there is no reason to change rail until the head wears out past some condemning limit. Rail on curves wears out much faster than on tangents. Common belief is that the rail actually gets stronger as it gets used by trains.

[Sand Box John]

"polybalt"
115 RE ( not PE) is the name of the rail section. RE means the section was designed orginally by the American Railway Engineering Association ( AREA).

I stand corrected.

Didn't notice the tail on the R when I took the picture. Kind hard to see the tail on the R because of the Shadow.

CC stands for control cooled. This leads to higher quality rail.

BTW, there is no reason to change rail until the head wears out past some condemning limit. Rail on curves wears out much faster than on tangents. Common belief is that the rail actually gets stronger as it gets used by trains.

The trains rolling on the rail is somewhat like cold rolling.

I would be curious as to who milled the rail that broke last week and when it was rolled.

Seems WMATA most resent procurement of rail was back in 2005.

[drumz0rz]

Wow, they need to replace those rails, if they are getting old, so that these derailments don't happen too often

A rail milled in 2000 certainly isn't old. On the Long Island Railroad I've seen rails stamped 1988, going back to 1974 all from Beth Steelton and they still look like they're in mint condition despite having dozens of trains pass over them daily

[NellieBly]

Just as a matter of interest, the average life of rail on the Class I railroad network is 750 million gross tons. Put another way, rail on a line carrying 75 MGT per year would last 10 years. Rail on a line carrying 7.5 MGT could be expected to last 100 years. Fifty year old rail is not at all uncommon on branch lines, so a nine-year-old rail (rolled in 2000) is practically new.

Rail life is limited either by wear or fatigue. On WMATA, and on rapid transit lines in general, axle loads are light but trains are frequent. This leads to high wear, especially on curves, but there is minimal cumulative fatigue damage due to the light axle loads. A bigger problem for transit systems is that tunnels are often wet. This can lead to base corrosion, which reduces the girder strength of rail and leads to rail breaks.

Anecdotally, as a frequent rider of Metro I've noticed lots of rail joints, resulting either from removal of defective rails or from the replacement of broken rails. These joints should be thermite welded within a reasonable period after installation, but Metro seems to have other work for its maintenance forces to do. In some areas there are so many joints that it sounds like we're on bolted rail, although Metro when constructed was built with 100% CWR.

In general, I've found Metro's track maintenance practices to be poor. Defects are uncorrected for long periods. I wonder about their track inspection reporting system, both its accuracy and its effectiveness.

[Robert Paniagua]

Addison Road on the Maryland Blue Line debuted on Nov 22, 1980 (11/22/80) rather than Dec 22.

[Sand Box John]

"Robert Paniagua"
Addison Road on the Maryland Blue Line debuted on Nov 22, 1980 (11/22/80) rather than Dec 22.

Corrected

[Mainland]

Sorry to dredge this thread from the woods, but I recalled a prior discussion about rail life and this is connected.

Apparently the latest cracked rail on the red line from this week was, per Metro (if you believe Stessel), on a stretch of original rail...per his words "dating back 40 years"

http://fixmetro.org/2014/10/01/confirme ... -old-rail/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(I'm not connected to the fixmetro.org site, they just happened to have the video clip from NBC)

Roger B., "DiscoveryAnalysis" on these boards, reported that the crack was on the inbound track, 1500 feet south of Woodley.

[Sand Box John]

"Mainland"
Sorry to dredge this thread from the woods, but I recalled a prior discussion about rail life and this is connected.

Apparently the latest cracked rail on the red line from this week was, per Metro (if you believe Stessel), on a stretch of original rail...per his words "dating back 40 years"

http://fixmetro.org/2014/10/01/confirme ... -old-rail/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(I'm not connected to the fixmetro.org site, they just happened to have the video clip from NBC)

Roger B., "DiscoveryAnalysis" on these boards, reported that the crack was on the inbound track, 1500 feet south of Woodley.

I say big deal, WMATA got their moneys worth out of that section of rail. The service life of rail varies depending on the forces it is subjected to. Rail in tangent track will last longer then rail in curves. I wouldn't be surprised if the rail along the platforms in all of the station was original rail. There are section of curved track in the system where the rail is changed out from every 18 months to 3 years. Hell I have seen mill marks in tangent track on main lines of common carries railroad that was more then 40 years old. I have even seen rail in yard with mill marks from the late 1800s.

The rail in question was milled by Bethlehem Steelton because that was the vendor the track work contractors procured rail from up until the 1990s. WMATA also procured replacement rail mill by Bethlehem Steelton up until the 1990s.