MTA Limits Blue Line Trains to Repair Rails

A major project to repair and maintain the tracks and rail bed along the Metro Blue Line has forced the MTA to cut the number of late morning and early afternoon trains between downtown Los Angeles and Long Beach from five to three an hour.

The work, which began in October and is scheduled to continue until May, has meant delays for off-peak passengers on the 22-mile light-rail line.

After all the work is finished, Blue Line passengers will have a smoother ride, said Tom Jasmin, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s superintendent of rail operation.

Trains now run every 20 minutes instead of every 12 minutes between 9:30 a.m and 2 p.m. weekdays because the maintenance project forces the shutdown of one of the rail line’s two tracks. That means that northbound and southbound trains must alternately share the one track that remains open.

The $900-million rail line connecting the county’s two largest cities opened in July 1990. It carried an average of 40,000 to 47,000 riders weekdays during the last eight months, an MTA spokeswoman said. Weekend ridership is lower.

The maintenance work is being done during the day to minimize the noise impact on residential areas along the route, MTA officials said.

Jasmin said the standard maintenance procedure is intended to align the rails so they are level. To do so, part of the track and the railroad ties must be lifted inches off the ground so crews can add gravel and level the rail bed underneath. Once that work is completed and the rails are restored, Jasmin said, the track must be ground down to remove any excess wear on the rails caused by the trains’ wheels.

The grinder is “such a noisy piece of equipment” that the MTA did not want to subject residents to the racket at night.

MTA crews also had to shave part of the rails on the Metro Green Line in Hawthorne last year because those trains were making a shrill noise when they traveled on a curved segment of the route. Residents had complained that the noise would begin before dawn when the trains start operating.

Most of the maintenance work on the Blue Line between Long Beach and Artesia Boulevard has been done. Jasmin said crews now are working their way toward downtown Los Angeles along portions of the route that have fewer crossovers between the two tracks. This requires that the MTA run trains less often. Notices have been posted at stations to inform passengers of the delays, he said.