Derailment at East Falls Church

[JackRussell]

Details are a bit sparse right now, but a trail derailed in the East Falls Church station this morning. Passengers were evacuated to the platform, but the train is still blocking the track, and the East Falls Church station is closed.

Due to the safety surge, there is still single-tracking between East Falls Church and Ballston.

Edit: According to MetroHero, it looks like there are two Silver Line trains trapped to the west of the derailment, and they appear to be cycling back and forth between McLean and Wiehle. Similar thing going on the Orange Line - two trains cycling back and forth between Vienna and West Falls Church.

[MCL1981]

Details are sparse... The WMATA PR department is still working on way to spin this as the fault of a customer sneezing near the tracks in Rockville.

[JackRussell]

On WTOP, there is a photo (from VDOT, actually) that shows the train. It was a silver line train heading to Wiehle and it was crossing over from the inbound to the outbound track just east of the station when the train derailed (the train was on the inbound track due to single-tracking).

[JDC]

This tweet has a photo embedded in it that shows the 2 middle cars of the train off the tracks at the interlocking. https://twitter.com/MetroReasons/status ... 7608543232

[JackRussell]

Here is the VDOT picture (click to enlarge):

[JDC]

More photos in the WP story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr- ... ct-delays/

[JDC]

This incident-specific WP story has another good photo. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/tr ... ge%2Fstory.

Metro is now saying service will not be restored for evening rush hour service. What a mess.

[litz]

Looks like they picked a switch, or derailed on the switch.

That's usually one of only three possible causes :

1) switch and/or switch points are worn, causing a flange to pick the straight path, instead of the curved.
2) someone moved the switch while the train was passing over the switch
3) excessive speed greater then that which the switch was designed

[srepetsk]

Cars 4&5 were affected, cars 3238 and 5134. The 5K is of the trailing pair.

[MCL1981]

Does it look like the cars derailed at the X in the middle of the interlocking? Or where the cars entered the interlocking at the switch?

[Sand Box John]

"MCL1981"
Does it look like the cars derailed at the X in the middle of the interlocking? Or where the cars entered the interlocking at the switch?

From what can be seen in The Washington Post video clip taken by a passing motorist it looked like the train derailed in the 3A turnout when crossing over from track K1 to track K2. The cab ends of the second and third cars appear to be the only part of the train on the ground.

[JDC]

Service will remain suspended at least through Saturday. http://wmata.com/about_metro/news/Press ... aseID=6143

[srepetsk]

"MCL1981"
Does it look like the cars derailed at the X in the middle of the interlocking? Or where the cars entered the interlocking at the switch?

From what can be seen in The Washington Post video clip taken by a passing motorist it looked like the train derailed in the 3A turnout when crossing over from track K1 to track K2. The cab ends of the second and third cars appear to be the only part of the train on the ground.

Wiedefeld in his press conference earlier said that two cars/trucks (he used the two interchangeably, but I presume he was talking about the trucks) were off and showed significant damage. So that'd line up with what you mentioned, just the cab ends of 4th/5th cars being off (not 2nd/3rd, it was heading from K04-1 1>2 to K05-2 heading to N06).

[Sand Box John]

"srepetsk"
Wiedefeld in his press conference earlier said that two cars/trucks (he used the two interchangeably, but I presume he was talking about the trucks) were off and showed significant damage. So that'd line up with what you mentioned, just the cab ends of 4th/5th cars being off (not 2nd/3rd, it was heading from K04-1 1>2 to K05-2 heading to N06).

You are correct, The motorist video looked as if he was traveling in the same as the train when in fact he was traveling east.

The WUSA 9 helicopter shot shows the trucks of the 2 cars roughly 3' right of center.

[smallfire85]

The train was removed from the scene at around 9:30 last night. NTSB was on the scene conducting an investigation. The two derailed trucks practically came completely off the track, kicking up a ton of ballast, third rail, and knocking the interlocking out of alignment. There were track kinks in the mainline portions of the crossover and a pretty bad kink in the 1A/1B move. They are probably going to have the mainline tracks up and running by Monday, but the interlocking might take more time.