Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Some cruise prices are about to get a little more clear

When budget flights actually make good budget sense

Tired of overcrowded national parks? Here’s how to go backcountry camping.

U.S. offers aid as Zelensky drops foreign trip due to Russian advance

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico shot and gravely injured

A mountainous country loses its last glacier

Trump allies call trial a ‘sham.’ Public opinion isn’t cooperating.

Biden and Trump agree to CNN debate in June, ABC faceoff in September

 Key Senate matchups set for November in Maryland, West Virginia

Puppy abandoned with heart-rending note is adopted, named Minerva

Man, 91, shocks tiny firehouse with $500K gift: ‘Nobody knew how much I’d saved’

Retired cop meets abandoned baby he helped 23 years ago: ‘What are the odds?’

Look to the cloud to protect the life documents saved on your computer

Can you spot bad financial advice on TikTok? Take our quiz.

5 myths about Social Security as the program faces a funding crisis

The new dining reality: Smaller groups and shorter weeks

Commanders will open at Tampa Bay and close against the Cowboys; here’s everything we know

The 26 best new restaurants in the D.C. area

How America tried and failed to stay White

After a borderland shootout, a 100-year-old battle for the truth

D.C.’s secret garden

Senators studied AI for a year. Critics call the result ‘pathetic.’

Even remote and hybrid work can burn you out. Here’s how to avoid it.

Ask Amy: My mom lied about how much she supported my sister

Carolyn Hax: Aging mom’s increasing anxiety robs child of a valued confidante

Miss Manners: Dinner host hates clearing the table for guests

States see legalized sports betting as a tax windfall — but at what cost?

Haiti’s plight is a case study in the ‘responsibility to protect’

No, Apple, people do not want tech to crush everything in its path 

Biden’s false claim that inflation was 9 percent when he took office

Did Obamacare ‘massively’ increase the cost of health care?

RFK Jr.’s ‘history lesson’ on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine flunks the fact test

Netflix will air NFL’s Christmas games, a major step for streaming service

Sam Feist, longtime CNN executive, will become CEO of C-SPAN

Michael Cohen testimony ties Donald Trump to hush money payment

Angela Alsobrooks Wins Maryland Senate Seat 

Justin Goerge

The wheels of a Metro car that derailed, prompting a federal investigation and subsequent suspension of more than half of Metro’s fleet, had moved far beyond the transit agency’s standard for safety, according to <a href="https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/RRD22LR001.aspx" target=_blank>preliminary findings</a> released Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The NTSB said wheels on the 7000-series car that derailed Oct. 12 were found to have moved two inches apart from one another. Metro deems wheels that shift more than one-sixteenth of an inch to be unsafe.

The findings were accompanied by an NTSB safety alert that called for all transit and commuter rail systems across the country to check for wheels that have tilted from axles, a malfunction the federal agency said could threaten passenger safety.

The revelations are the latest development challenging Metro at a time when it had been focused on luring back passengers amid a return to in-person work. The derailment has forced the agency to battle its biggest setback in six years while disrupting public transit across the Washington region.

The safety board said its alert for other transit and commuter rail agencies is precautionary, adding that it knows of no other wheel defects similar to the one hounding Metro.

“We see a problem here,” NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said. “We want to make sure there’s not a systemic problem elsewhere.”

Wheels on 7000-series cars are pressed to their axles with 65 to 95 tons of force to avoid shifts beyond one-sixteenth of an inch. Wheels on their axles should remain 53-5/16 inches apart, Metro officials say.

Russell Quimby, a railroad accident consultant who worked as an NTSB investigator for more than two decades, said he does not know of another case in which wheels shifted as far as what the NTSB found on the Metro car.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” he said.

NTSB begins investigation into Metro derailment that prompted evacuations

The National Transportation Safety Board began its investigation Oct. 12 when a Blue Line train <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2021/10/12/metro-train-derailment-blue-line-arlington-cemetery/?itid=lk_inline_manual_11">slipped off the tracks</a>, prompting the evacuation of 187 passengers. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2021/10/23/metro-transit-cars-ntsb-investigation/?itid=lk_inline_manual_11">investigation</a> revealed that one of the car’s wheelsets — an axle and two connected wheels — suffered from a defect that caused the wheels to move outward. Investigators learned Metro mechanics had been finding the problem since 2017 within the agency’s latest model of rail car.

Built by Kawasaki Rail Car, the 7000-series cars began showing signs of the defect two years after the first batch of cars were delivered to Metro. The defect appeared twice during routine 90-day inspections in 2017. Inspections in subsequent years uncovered similarly small numbers of the defects, leading transit agency officials to believe the problem was isolated.

But this year, Metro inspections found 18 cases of the defect before the derailment put a spotlight on the growing problem.

Emergency inspections by Metro and the NTSB after the derailment found about 20 more cases, prompting the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission to order Metro to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2021/10/17/metro-suspend-trains-safety-ntsb/?itid=lk_inline_manual_15">pull all 7000-series cars</a> from service on Oct. 17.

The suspension of the 748 cars has forced Metro to operate its rail system with heavily scaled-back service and long waits, with the agency using only about a quarter of its roughly 1,200-car fleet.

The NTSB safety alert that accompanied its Metro findings follows a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2021/10/29/metro-derailment-ntsb-transit/" target=_blank>Federal Transit Administration safety alert </a>that took effect Nov. 1, which recommended all public transportation systems inspect wheels and axles on their cars. The FTA also ordered the nation’s transit agencies to submit records of any rail cars with wheels that have loosened or tilted.

The FTA said in a statement that responses to its order were due Wednesday, and the agency is reviewing them as they arrive.

Federal Transit Administration orders transit agencies’ inspection records after Metro derailment

The NTSB’s alert called on rail transit agencies to do similar assessments, but also recommended that commuter railroad systems — such as MARC in Maryland and the Virginia Railway Express do the same. Maryland Department of Transportation spokeswoman Brittany Marshall said the agency is reviewing the NTSB safety alert. A message from The Washington Post to the VRE was not returned.

“The Safety Alert identifies the issue of wheelset movement on transit rail cars and commuter railroads as a serious problem that has the potential to create a catastrophic event,” Robert Hall, director of the NTSB’s Office of Railroad, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Investigations, said in a statement.

Metro spokesman Ian Jannetta said Metro already has inspected its entire fleet for the defect.

“We have no reason to believe wheelset issues extend beyond the 7000-series fleet,” Jannetta said.

The wheel defect is progressive and appears after an unknown number of miles, making it hard to predict, investigators have said.

The NTSB’s preliminary findings did not point to any cause for the malfunction, and the safety board said it is now focusing its investigation on a “failure analysis” of the wheelsets, the response from rail traffic controllers to the derailment, oversight of Metrorail and any similar wheelset issues on other passenger rail cars that might surface.

Quimby said the NTSB’s findings could point to wheels being pressed onto axles with inadequate pressure.

“The only reason the wheels would move like that on an axle would be if they weren’t pressed on correctly or with not enough pressure,” he said.

Kawasaki Rail Car subcontracted with Sumitomo Metals to supply the wheels and axles, and with ORX to assemble the wheelset by pressing the wheels onto the axles, the NTSB said. Messages from The Post to the companies were not returned Wednesday.

The safety board report also included damage estimates to the derailed car, which investigators say slipped off tracks twice before the final derailment. Damage amounted to $715,000, or about one-third of the cost of the car.

The order sidelining Metro’s 7000-series cars — issued by the safety commission, an independent agency Congress created to monitor Metrorail safety after years of lapses — allows transit officials to resume using cars without the defect if Metro can show the commission it can do so without risking passenger safety.

Metro is proposing to speed up inspections of every car from 90 days to eight days to catch the first signs of the defect.

Metro submits testing plan aimed at restoring suspended rail cars

Last month, Metro began testing that hypothesis on two out-of-service 7000-series trains carrying weighted boxes to simulate passengers. Jannetta said the trains have completed that initial testing.

“We will determine next steps based upon analysis and feedback from [the safety commission], which may include additional data collection activities,” he said.

Wheelset inspections of Metro railcars require precision and time, Metro says

If Metro’s wheel screening process is successful, the transit agency will send its results to the safety commission and request the release of all cars unaffected by the defect. Transit officials have said they do not expect the 7000-series to be reinstated before the end of the year.

University of Colorado, BS in journalism

Justin George is a reporter covering national transit and Metro, the D.C.-area public transportation system, for The Washington Post. He previously covered criminal justice for the Marshall Project and the Baltimore Sun. 

Justin George

washpost

NTSB investigation of Metro train derailment shows wheel movement

the-washington-post

NTSB addressed the problems with Metro cars

The Washington Post

staff

name

iptc-media/sport/competition_discipline

iptc-media/disaster_accident_and_emergency_incident/accident_and_emergency_incident/transport_accident_and_incident/railway_accident_and_incident

iptc-media/science_and_technology

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/economic_sector/transport/railway_transport

iptc-media/disaster_accident_and_emergency_incident/accident_and_emergency_incident/transport_accident_and_incident

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/economic_sector/transport

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/economic_sector/transport/traffic

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/economic_sector/manufacturing_and_engineering

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/economic_sector/manufacturing_and_engineering/automotive_equipment

iptc-media/science_and_technology/technology_and_engineering

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance

iptc-media/sport

iptc-media/disaster_accident_and_emergency_incident

iptc-media/disaster_accident_and_emergency_incident/accident_and_emergency_incident

client-blocklists/Client List: Morgan Stanley KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Becton Dickinson KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/CLIENT LIST: Nomura KWs 2021 - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Boeing KWs 2021- INCLUDE ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Johnson & Johnson KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Bed Bath & Beyond KWs - INCLUDE ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Exxon Mobil  - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/WaPo: Combined Disaster Keyword List - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: USAA KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: T. Rowe Price KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Microsoft KWs 2 - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Google PG KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Discover Card KWs – EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/T. Rowe Price KWs - INCLUDES ANY

advertising/B2_Automotive Interest 2.5.15_legacyaux_jqs

client-blocklists/HBO KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Ford/Lincoln KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Ronald McDonald House KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Capital One (One Tech) KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Diageo - Johnnie Walker KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/ Client List: Mercedes EQS KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Organon KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Navy Federal Credit Union NFCU KWs 2 - INCLUDES ANY - 12.23.20

client-blocklists/Client List: AT&T KWs 2021 - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Synchrony Financial KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Inpixon KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/ExxonMobil 03312021 KWs - INCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Showtime KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Apple TV+ KW – INCLUDES ANY

advertising/B2_Business_legacyaux_hws

client-blocklists/Client Neg KW List: Omega KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/PMI KWs 2021 - EXCLUDE ALL

client-blocklists/GEICO KWs - INCLUDES ANY_4.26.21

client-blocklists/Client List: Eli Lily KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: IBM KWs ALTERNATE Watson - EXCLUDES ALL

advertising/B2_Data Center Buyer_legacyaux_80A

client-blocklists/Client List: Citibank KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

advertising/B2_Departments and Agencies_legacyaux_1nn

client-blocklists/Citibank KWs 2021 - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: IBM KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Purina KWs - INCLUDES ANY

advertising/Citrix Mindfulness

advertising/B2_Government & Policy_legacyaux_mza

client-blocklists/Bank of America KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/BP KWs - INCLUDES ANY

advertising/B2_Infrastructure_legacyaux_vr5

client-blocklists/National Instruments KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Intel KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: AT&T Digital Divide  - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Samsung 2021 KWs - INCLUDE ANY

advertising/B2_Politics and Policy_legacyaux_pay

client-blocklists/Google PG Competitor KWs - EXCLUDES ALL 

advertising/B2_Positive News_legacyaux_hlt

advertising/B2_Retailers_legacyaux_7ui

advertising/B2_Transportation & Infrastructure_legacyaux_a4m

advertising/B2_Transportation, Logistics, and Industry_legacyaux_kre

advertising/B2_Young Professional / International Businessman_legacyaux_r5x

client-blocklists/Client List: GEICO KWs

client-blocklists/Client List: Novo Nordisk KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Siemens KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Facebook KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Cisco KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: AT&T ALT KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Mercedes KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/FX Excludes All Disney

client-blocklists/Client List: Boeing KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Aetna KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Philip Morris KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Google KWs - INCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Dupixent neg kws - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Capital One KWs 2 - INCLUDES ANY - 1.4.21

client-blocklists/Bank of America Merrill Lynch KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/CME KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Chase KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Office Depot KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: ETrade KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Amazon KWs - EXCLUDE ALL 

prism://prism.query/two-sites,/local/traffic-commuting,/transportation&limit=20

Transportation

prism://prism.query/site,/local/traffic-commuting&limit=20

Local Transportation

"Washington Post traffic provides real-time, live traffic updates, incident reports and road conditions for the DC metro area, including Northern Virginia and Maryland.

Fast, informative and written just for locals. Get The 7 DMV newsletter in your inbox every weekday morning.

D.C., Md. & Va.

The Washington Post offers breaking local news, weather and traffic information for the DC, Maryland and Virginia metro areas, plus information about school districts, crime, government, religion, the lottery,restaurant reviews and obituaries.

Transportation;Local Transportation;D.C., Md. & Va.