More delays this morning prompted Virginia Railway Express officials to once again open the Metro option for its riders, which allows VRE passengers to board Metro for free with a valid VRE ticket.
This afternoon, the commuter railroad has issued an explanation of what prompted the move.
Monday’s delays also forced the agency to hand out free rides to those who were inconvenienced.
VRE statement:
For those of you who rode on a delayed Fredericksburg Line train this morning, we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience today. While at first blush, it may look like all of the trains had mechanical problems this morning, in reality it was just one. The equipment originally scheduled to operate as Train #304 began having problems with the cab car (the lead car in the morning). When it was apparent that the problem could not be fixed immediately, we moved up the next train’s equipment (#306) to operate Train #304. This switch happened again when we used Train #308’s equipment to operate as train #306.
We thought the problem was solved and decided to operate Train #308 with the equipment that had been having issues. It was lined up to leave our storage yard right after train #306. As a result, we opted to implement our skip stop policy (at Leeland Road and Brooke) to ensure adequate temporal separation between the two trains. Normally, our skip stop policy is only enacted when we know that the trains are following close together. However, the equipment on Train #308 stopped again right after departing the yard, forcing us to cancel that train. Unfortunately, we could not contact the crew quickly enough to have Train #306 stop at Leeland Road, but we were able to stop at Brooke.
We understand that you depend on us to be on-time. Rest assured, we are still in the process of evaluating the entire situation from start to finish, because we know that thing could have done been done better.
FRCs were handed out on train #306, the only train eligible for FRCs. However, if you were bypassed at the Leeland Road station, please use the form on our website at https://vre.org/programs/PDF/frc-request.pdf.
