Riders Safe After Red Line Evacuation

About 400 riders were safely evacuated from a Metro Red Line subway tunnel near downtown Los Angeles last weekend after equipment failures caused a four-car train to come to a virtual standstill, officials said Tuesday.

The Saturday night evacuation was called after a frustrated passenger pulled open an emergency door and riders began wandering out into the tunnel between stations. Alarmed, Red Line employees shut down power to that portion of the subway to prevent electrocutions.

All passengers of train No. 55, which stalled near the Westlake/MacArthur Park station shortly before midnight, stepped out onto the tunnel’s emergency walkway, illuminated by fluorescent lights connected to a separate power supply.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority employees and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies searched the tunnel afterward to make sure no one had gotten lost, fallen on the tracks or touched a rail that is normally charged with 750 volts of electricity.

“We wanted to make sure everyone was safe,” said Gerald Francis, the MTA’s general manager for rail services.

The events began about 10:50 p.m. Saturday, when the subway’s signaling system malfunctioned, falsely indicating to operators that another train was on the tracks. The malfunction triggered trains to go into a backup “manual mode,” which slows vehicles to no more than 25 mph, said Melvin Clark, the MTA’s deputy executive officer of rail transportation.

But train 55, traveling from North Hollywood to downtown Los Angeles, could not go into manual mode because of other mechanical problems, causing it to crawl at 9 mph or less. Passengers accustomed to the train’s usual speeds may have mistakenly thought they were stopping, Clark said, and tried to get off.

The power shutdown occurred between the Westlake/MacArthur Park and Civic Center stations, which have two stops in between. The service interruption also affected other trains traveling to those stations.

By 1:07 a.m. Sunday, power was restored and subway trains were running again, officials said.

The evacuation was the Red Line’s fifth since January, Clark said. Three were caused by equipment failure, and a fourth was triggered by a medical emergency.

The subway runs about 2,600 trips a week.

On Sunday afternoon, an equipment failure occurred at the Red Line’s North Hollywood station. Officials likened that incident to “blowing a giant fuse.”