WASHINGTON — An insulator on fire underneath a 7000-series Metro car caused smoke to fill the Eastern Market Metro station and nine people to be evaluated.
Crews were first called to the 700 block of Pennsylvania Avenue Southeast for a box alarm just after 1 p.m.. When crews arrived, they said smoke was visible on the platform. The train and Eastern Market station itself were evacuated.
DC Fire and EMS said an insulator caught fire, which has since been extinguished. Metro Chief Infrastructure Officer Andrew Off attributed the incident to arcing on a 7000-series train moving westbound. The arcing likely occurred from contact with the energized third rail.
Posts on social media initially reported an explosion, but the fire department said no explosion took place. There was no train derailment, either.
Nine people were evaluated, and one of them was taken to an area hospital. None of the injuries were serious or life-threatening.
At 2:45 p.m. Off said they expect to move the impacted train shortly to get a better look. He said while there could be a potential problem with the specific train, they do not expect to find a fleet-wide issue. However, they will be looking at all 7000-series trains.
WMATA General Manager Randy Clarke took to X, formerly known at Twitter, to apologize to riders for what happened Thursday.
"WMATA service was not good enough today and I apologize to our customers," Clarke wrote. "We have been running consistent frequent safe reliable service & days like today show we still have work to do despite great staff efforts. We are being as transparent as possible & cont to improve."
Clarke added that what happened at the Eastern Market station appears to be a 3rd rail show assembly that came loose.
"We have inspected track & are checking all trains," he said. "No anomalies have been found & we don’t believe a system-wide issue exist."
A Metro rider who was on the train told WUSA9 that as soon as the train got into the tunnel leaving Stadium Armory, riders heard a very loud pop that startled them. The pops continued a few more times during the ride. They evacuated the train at Eastern Market, and there were announcements in the station to evacuate altogether.
WARNING: Language used by the witness may be offensive to some.
Metro says trains were single-tracking between Eastern Market and Federal Center, causing delays. Eastern Market, Capitol South and Potomac Avenue were closed for several hours, but have since reoepened.
This comes about a month after the National Transportation Safety Board blasted Metro for what it called a "poor safety culture."
“Failing to proactively identify risk is something that’s repetitive in WMATA’s history,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy when issuing her organization's final report of a 2021 Blue line derailment.
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