Metro: Well, okay, we might have a stray current problem

After all that hemming and hawing, stalling and pooh-poohing, Metro now admits there HAS been a rather significant stray current problem, and while Metro and Siemens are working to get it under control, there are still trouble spots (via the Chronicle's Rad Sallee):

The Metropolitan Transit Authority and its light-rail contractor have been working nights to find and fix the sites where stray electrical current is leaking into the ground from the tracks.

New tests show they've made progress, Metro said last week.

About 15 percent of the 7.5-mile line is losing current at levels that exceed the "very stringent" specifications in Metro's contract with Siemens Transportation Systems, said Bryan Pennington, the agency's vice president of planning, engineering and construction.

That compares with 45 percent of the line in April, and the level of leakage is now lower throughout its length, Pennington said.

He said the leakage poses no threat to the public but could cause damage to metal objects near the tracks in time if not corrected.

A map provided by Metro shows current leakage still exceeds contractual specifications at five segments of the line, all of which have track switches or crossovers.

By far the longest runs from Old Spanish Trail to Holcombe and includes the Texas Medical Center's Smith Lands parking lot, Metro's TMC Transit Center and the Fannin Street bridge over Brays Bayou.

Medical Center officials said recently that they and several hospitals on Fannin, where the tracks run, have hired a consultant to test for stray current in building foundations.

The second-longest segment with excessive current runs from Congress to the University of Houston-Downtown, the north end of the rail line.

It includes the Main Street bridge over Buffalo Bayou.

Short segments where the current remains a problem are at Hermann Park Station, Wheeler Station and from Webster to Pierce, near the Downtown Transit Center and Metro headquarters.

Pennington said it probably will take less than a year for leakage all along the line to be reduced to contractual levels.

Metro has been dealing with the problem since summer 2005 and working on it "intensively" — mostly at night — since April, he Pennington said.

Interestingly, a glance at our archives provides a hint at what prompted Metro to deal with the problem (apart from Centerpoint's discovery and Tom Bazan's persistence): the Texas Medical Center. In July of 2005, TMC officials first expressed concern about stray current running underneath the complex, and then this past March, TMC officials were more pointed in their criticism of Metro, saying that Metro needed to fix the problem promptly.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 12/04/06 11:05 AM | Print |

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