Four months ago, Metro introduced its new 7000 series rail-cars to large fanfare and media excitement. Monday, the first train broke down.
The futuristic looking new cars, with their television screens and automated stop announcements, were supposed to kick off an era of advancement at the D.C. Metro railway, but instead riders were forced to evacuate one of the trains after it broke down at the Fort Totten Metro station.
Just off loaded broken new 7000 series train at Fort Totten, it's hopeless for Metro. @unsuckdcmetro pic.twitter.com/dWhEkSIxKT
— Dan Lawrence (@danwlawrence) August 17, 2015
The issue with the new trains, The Washington Post reports, is a glitch in the software loaded into the new trains.
Mike Tolbert, a Metro spokesman, told the Post the new cars are already due for a software update that would fix the problem and it should be done soon.
“These types of issues are not uncommon with new equipment,” he told the paper. “It’s like your car. A car built in 2015 has a lot more software than a car built in 1980.”
Metro purchased 528 of the 7000 series cars at an overall cost of $1.46 billion. It’s first new purchase since 2005 when it introduced the 6000 series cars.
This is the second issue Metro has had with two technology this month. The agency opened a new escalator at the Bethesda Metro station Aug. 3. Since then, the escalator has broken down at least three times.
The broken down escalators caused the Bethesda station to close for hours at a time and forced Metro riders to take shuttle buses to surrounding stations.
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