The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has announced that for the immediate future the opening of all doors on its trains will be controlled by train operators. On rare occasions, doors have opened on the wrong side of the car as the train comes to a stop at a station. This problem has occurred as Metro officials have been working to upgrade power substations and related infrastructure to produce enough electricity so that additional eight-car trains can be run to accommodate growing ridership demands. Apparently, the upgrades are causing electromagnetic interference with the system that automatically opens the doors. The temporary fix is to have train operators open the doors manually overriding the automatic system. In the long term an electronic component will need to be installed in all of Metro’s 1066 rail cars. According to Metro Rail Chief Dave Kubicek, “While this problem happens only rarely, it is a safety concern. This has only happened four times in the last 22 million times that train doors have opened, but even one time is too many.” See the original announcement on the Metro website.From subway cars to electric ovens to amusement park rides – an exotic variety of devices have fallen victim to EMI. Share your more unusual examples at the Shielding Community Forums.
EMI Causes Washington, DC Metro Trains to Switch to Manual Operation of Doors
