Another Red Line Track Incident Closes Bethesda Metro Station Today

Metro riders heading to Bethesda were out of luck this morning, the result of smoke and haze from another track problem in the Red Line tunnel near the Bethesda station. Metro closed the Bethesda station at 6:45 a.m. because of a track fire, which was found between the Bethesda and Friendship Heights stations. At about 7:15 a.m., Metro reopened the station but only trains traveling toward Washington, D.C., were allowed to stop there. Those traveling outbound from Washington, D.C., were forced to get off at the Medical Center station through the rest of rush hour. Many got off at the Friendship Heights station and took a free shuttle to Bethesda. A Metro spokesperson said she wasn’t yet sure what caused the smoke. The incident marks at least the fourth time since April 7 that firefighters have responded to the tunnel near the Bethesda station for a report of smoke on the tracks. It also comes as local community leaders push for answers about an incident earlier this month in which trains bypassed the station in the middle of morning rush hour because it was overcrowded. “Day by day confidence in the Metro system deteriorates,” wrote the Western Montgomery County Citizens Advisory Board in a letter to county officials about the overcrowding May 6. “[Metro’s lack of] reliability is more than an inconvenience—it impacts the future success of downtown Bethesda,” the group wrote. “Many in the community no longer use Metro to travel if they have to be somewhere on time.” The citizens advisory board is a group of residents, civic leaders and business representatives appointed by the county to advise it on local issues. On April 7, an arcing insulator in the tunnel between the Bethesda and Medical Center stations led to a fire department response and single tracking. Later that day, a power surge that hit the region led one of the Bethesda station’s three main escalators to malfunction. Metro closed the station for safety reasons because one of the other two main escalators was already closed due to a long-term replacement project. On April 14, Montgomery County firefighters were again called to the Red Line tunnel, this time for an arcing insulator about 200 feet north of the Bethesda station. Reports of smoke, often caused by arcing insulators, are a frequent occurrence in the tunnel because of leaking problems with the tunnel’s roof. Arcing insulators can happen when water hits the electrified third rail. An arcing insulator was to blame for the January incident outside the L’Enfant Plaza station in which one woman died after being on a train that filled up with smoke. Metro plans to close off the section for 14 weekends next year to fix the tunnel. Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Services spokesperson Pete Piringer said he doesn’t know how many times firefighters have responded to the station in recent months because the department doesn’t keep statistics by location. “We know how to get there,” Piringer said. “Let’s put it that way.”