(The following article by Athima Chansanchai and Kathy Mulady was posted on the Seattle Post Intelligencer website on November 29.)
SEATTLE, Wash. — If you didn’t capture a picture of the two Monorail trains stuck together over the weekend, you may be out of luck.
Poised for a forced separation Monday night, the Red and Blue Trains are still a long way from home. Seattle officials will be happy if they’re at Cedar Street by this morning.
Loaded with 84 passengers on Saturday night, the Monorail’s only two trains did something they were never supposed to do: pass the line’s narrowest point at the same time. All the passengers were safely taken off the trains after the accident.
Seattle Center spokesman Perry Cooper said the two trains have always been repaired on the tracks at the Seattle Center, and engineers and other officials have been brainstorming solutions to the first-of-its-kind problem. They decided the only way to get the trains unstuck was to use cranes to rig towing wires and pull them north.
“They will naturally come apart as the tracks widen — about 80 feet,” Cooper said. “Once we get them separated, we’ll go onboard.”
The city closed Fifth Avenue between Stewart and Virginia post-rush hour Monday night to allow the cranes access to the trains and to help prevent possible debris from injuring anyone. Shortly after 10:30 p.m., a crowd of nearly 100 that was gathered in a parking lot let out a whoop as the cars began to inch forward. For the trains to get back to the Seattle Center, the cranes may have to haul the trains block by block. But that might not work at two curves and the tunnel at the Experience Music Project.
“It was intentionally designed to narrow as it went there,” said Cooper, referring to the narrow pinch point designed to fit the parameters of the Westlake Center station. Using signal lights and radio communication, Monorail operators had to keep constant vigilance to avoid nearing the station at the same time. “We’ve obviously run this thousands of times over 16, 17 years and all the drivers and operators are all very familiar that it’s a narrow point.”
Cooper said an investigation by Seattle Monorail Services, which runs the trains, is under way to determine where the protocol went wrong.
The potential for the two trains to be wedged together at the narrowest part of the track was long known to those who follow monorail design, but it caught city officials and retailers by surprise.
Seattle City Councilman Peter Steinbrueck, like many others, has a sentimental attachment to the icon. He remembers taking the inaugural ride with his dad when he was 5, just before the 1962 World’s Fair opened.
Steinbrueck said he was stunned to hear of the glitch built into the system in 1988, when the original Monorail design changed to accommodate the Westlake station. Beset by a series of technical problems, the Monorail itself did not debut there until 1989.
One issue was a 2-inch gap in an extended ramp built to accommodate the Red Train, which runs on the east side of the rail. The Blue Train runs on the west side flush to the Westlake platform. While the Seattle Center station has simultaneous loading options for both trains, only one train at a time can load passengers at the Westlake station.
“I find it unfathomable that the engineers created an accident waiting to happen, they built this into it,” Steinbrueck said. “An accident was inevitable. It is the worst time of the year for this to happen. It is very disappointing.”
Such a design confounded Monorail experts, who warned of the inevitability of an accident when the two trains have to coordinate to avoid being at or near the Westlake station at the same time. The two trains operate simultaneously only at peak times.
“It’s the only pinched track like that of any monorail system I know of in the world — something they dreamed up so they could squeeze the track into Westlake Center,” said Kim Pedersen, president and founder of The Monorail Society, whose 4,300 members are avid fans of this form of transportation. “I don’t know anybody involved with trains or transit who wouldn’t look at that and think, ‘You’re asking for trouble.’ ”
Anita Woo, spokeswoman for the Downtown Seattle Association — which represents several retailers — said the organization was unaware of the design and the accident potential. But she remained optimistic that the Monorail would be back.
“It’s a historic icon, not just for downtown but for Seattle,” Woo said. “Last year when it was down after the Memorial Day fire, we recognized it is a major connector of downtown to the Seattle Center. When it’s not there, it’s certainly missed.”
The city contributed $2.5 million to repair and renovate the two cars after the May 2004 fire, which shut down the Monorail for more than six months.
“In the summertime you feel the impact the most. It’s the height of the tourist season,” Woo said. “In the winter season, not as much. We’ll certainly feel an impact, but it’s not expected to be as significant as the summertime.”
Seattle City Council members had wide-ranging reactions to the collision. They said Monday that they were amazed to learn that the problem of the narrow passing area between cars has been known about for 17 years and just “worked around.”
“When you see a safety situation like this, you have to ask whether it is something we want to continue,” said Councilman Richard Conlin.
The damage and the cost of repairs is still unknown.
“If it is $5 million or $10 million, maybe we will want to consider it,” said Conlin, chairman of the council’s transportation committee. “If it is $50 (million) or $100 million, we might have to consider something else.”