Metropolis, BR. February 16th, 2015.
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| Icy Wires Wrecked about $4000 of electrical equipment on the elevated trains. |
This morning's Rush Hour came to stand still on the 22, 26 & 79 lines when cold artic storm and lots of wind driven ocean spray cause ice to form on the wires that power the subway cars for those line. In an attempt to run trains on the lines, $4000 of overhead equipment was damaged. The lines were shut down at 8 AM right at the height of rush hour. The icy wires also slowed trolley service with speed restrictions on the 7, 21, 56 & 66 lines hampered service. The 5 trolley was also extended to Exhibition Hall to aid the 79's shutdown was impacted. Thankfully not trolley cars were damaged.
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| Older train cars have ice fighting equipment. |
The 42 remaining 51 year old el cars have overhead ice fighting equipment attached to them and can remove ice at a rapid rate. They are usually assigned to the 39 line with a set floating around on the 79 & 47 but all the 39 cars were taken off and placed on the 79 during the outage to scrape off the ice on the wires. There are also 8 of the old cars that are used for work service that assisted in the ice removal off the 22 & 26 lines. Service was restored by 11 PM this morning.
