Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Monorail to remain closed
Officials still trying to solve drive train woes
By OMAR SOFRADZIJA
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Las Vegas Monorail officials hope they're closing in on a cause for the shuttered rail line's woes, but they are no closer this week to setting a reopening date.
"It's not imminent. It's not opening anytime soon," Todd Walker, a monorail spokesman, said Monday. "You'll see full system testing before it opens."
The monorail has been closed since Sept. 8, after the third incident this year of metal parts falling from moving trains.
"The root cause has not been determined," Walker said. "We recognize it's something to do with the drive train."
Drive train parts fell away in two of the three incidents.
The train's builder and operator, Bombardier Corp. of Montreal, has submitted preliminary findings of its investigation into the problems that are now being reviewed by monorail officials.
Monorail officials declined to detail the report. Officials are now awaiting a similar study from Exponent Inc. of Menlo Park, Calif., a disaster analysis firm retained to scrutinize the inquiry.
A definitive cause of the monorail's woes, plans for a fix, a testing schedule and reopening date will largely depend on how the findings of the Bombardier and Exponent studies are reconciled by monorail officials.
Those findings must also be seconded by Clark County regulatory officials before the system can restart.
"They're all working on it at the same time," Walker said of Bombardier and Exponent. "Bombardier, it's their responsibility to fix it to the satisfaction of the county and the monorail company."
Walker was reticent to even guess at an earliest possible opening date.
The monorail opened to the public in July, several months behind schedule after glitches beset its driverless computer-steering system.
During the monorail's brief time open to the public, workers overseeing the system have been guilty of lapses, including the failure to heed system alarms and opening train doors facing a drop-off.
Earlier inquiries by monorail officials, county investigators, other consultants and Bombardier were insufficient to stem flaws on the $650 million rapid transit system.
Exponent was hired in late September. Its resume includes investigations of the bombing of Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and its past and current clients include NASA and the U.S. Army.
