DENVER — Regional Transportation District (RTD) is a very public agency. It is funded with metro area tax dollars, federal tax money and fares paid by users.
RTD is having a very public problem. It has limited, hourly light rail departures, and now, there are 10 mph slow-down zones because of rail damage that needs to be repaired.
This week, state regulators found out that the timeline to fix the repairs is moving as slow as the trains.
“Given all the press on the slowdowns and RTD, I’ve asked the team to brief us on this at our next [Commissioners Weekly Meeting] on Monday,” Public Utilities Commission (PUC) Chairman Eric Blank said.
“I can give you some briefing now, if it would be helpful,” Pam Fischhaber, PUC’s deputy director of rail safety, said.
The PUC does not have oversight of RTD, though when there are accidents, the PUC gets involved.
In 2022, RTD self-reported rail damage to the PUC resulting in a corrective action plan agreement between the two agencies. That agreement led to the inspections on the southeast light rail corridor along Interstate 25 that have resulted in the slowdowns because of damage discovered.
RTD has created a webpage to track the damage discovered and get updates on the issues that have added time to light rail commutes.
There is a map showing the 10 mph slowdown areas between Colorado Blvd. and Southmoor (Hampden Ave.) and between Belleview Ave. and County Line Road.
The slowdowns impact the E Line which travels up and down I-25 from RidgeGate in Douglas County to 10th and Osage Street in Downtown Denver. The H Line is also impacted between Florida Ave. in Aurora and 10th and Osage.
In June 2023, the E Line recorded 282,000 boardings. The H Line had 165,000 boardings.
The most recent statistics are from March 2024, which showed 306,000 boardings for the E Line and 194,000 boardings for the H Line.
The RTD webpage also shows a picture of a railhead burn. The photo shows damage to the top of the rail where the light rail wheels make contact with the rail.
“So, do you expect these slowdowns to continue for an extended period of time or do you think they’ll start reducing in terms of duration and amount of spots that are affected, or we just don’t know?” Blank asked.
“There’s a number of sections where the rail needs to be replaced because there has been damage or wear to the railheads, so they are getting material ordered, and they will be getting those repairs made as soon as they can,” Fischhaber said. “It may take a little bit of time to get all the rail ordered that they need. We should expect this to be the condition for a while but no end date in sight at this point.”
The PUC was also told this week that a light rail train that was disabled for four days in January had shed its wheel and tire components.
The train was stopped on the track between the Yale and Southmoor Stations, creating 45-minute delays for four days.
RTD had not said what the issue was, but the PUC found out through required reporting from RTD.
The narrative of that incident said, “The [light rail vehicle] began shedding wheel/tire components between Louisiana Pearl Station and University station, and the operator noticed performance issues. By Colorado Station, wheel/tire components were being shed at an increasing rate. Operator contacted Control asking about train issue reports from the previous operators. None reported. Operator continued southbound from Colorado to Yale Station with significant performance issues and just south of Yale Station, experienced catastrophic failure of one wheel/tire assembly; another tire was also affected. There were no injuries. There was significant damage to alignment infrastructure, rolling stack and the wheel structure of the [light rail vehicle].”
The narrative did not say if the current rail damage discovered was related to that incident.
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