Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004 | 11:09 a.m.
Technicians should have seen warnings that a 60-pound tire assembly powering the Las Vegas Monorail was unstable the day before the tire fell more than 20 feet off the train and prompted the ongoing shutdown of the system, the man in charge of the monorail management company said this morning.
In a preliminary investigation, Transit Systems Management, parent of the Las Vegas Monorail Co., found that technicians employed by Bombardier Transportation working at the system's control center near the Sahara hotel probably saw warning lights indicating a problem but failed to investigate their cause, Cam Walker, president and CEO of Transit System Management, said this morning.
"It's very frustrating and we're outraged that alarms did go off and our operator did not appear to follow the procedures to investigate those," Cam Walker said. "It should have been prevented."
No one was injured when the tire came loose from the monorail train and landed in a parking lot west of Koval Lane between Sands Avenue and Flamingo Road, near the Harrah's passenger platform, about 8 a.m. Wednesday, Todd Walker, a spokesman for the monorail, said.
The tire, used to guide the driverless train along the elevated track, fell to the ground into a parking lot and did not damage any property, he said.
Bombardier, the Canadian company contracted to build and operate the monorail, and the employees involved in this incident will likely face some kind of disciplinary action stemming from the investigation, Cam Walker said.
The company and construction partner Granite Construction amassed more than $12 million in fines stemming from the six-month delay in opening the system, according to the company.
Cam Walker said it was too early to tell how severe the punishment would be.
"I don't really know right now," Cam Walker said. "I know I'm the president and there has to be something."
A Bombardier employee was suspended Aug. 16 after he mistakenly opened a set of doors to a train while it was carrying passengers 25 feet off the ground. The passengers inside were transferred to another car while technicians inspected it, Todd Walker has said.
In January, while the system was still in the testing phase, a drive shaft fell from the train while it was in an enclosed area. No one was injured and testing was suspended for three days, Todd Walker said.
The two malfunctions are unrelated, he said.
"There's never been a tire or a wheel that fell from the monorail," Todd Walker said. "It's completely separate from anything that's happened in the past."
A team of engineers from McLean, Va.-based Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm brought in to investigate the malfunction, this morning was still trying to determine exactly how the tire assembly could have fallen from a moving train, Cam Walker said.
The monorail trains were evacuated after the accident and remained out of service this morning. Monorail officials did not have an estimate as to when the $650 million system will reopen, Todd Walker said.
Passengers aboard the monorail would likely not have felt the 20-inch tire coming loose from the train, Todd Walker said.
"On board you wouldn't have noticed it," he said. "The only risk would have been to people on the ground."
The closure came during the biannual MAGIC fashion expo, which ends today. The convention, billed as one of Las Vegas' largest, brings in about 90,000 people and was considered the first large-scale test of the monorail.
Wednesday's evacuation was the most serious in a series of glitches that has plagued the privately funded monorail since it opened July 15.
In July the system temporarily left riders stranded at the MGM Grand after malfunctioning doors locked the passengers inside for about 10 minutes.
The first leg of the system was pushed back more than six months, as engineers and technicians worked to correct a succession of computer and mechanical glitches. Contracts required the trains to run trouble-free for 30 days before the system opened.
The monorail runs about four miles from the MGM Grand to the Sahara hotel and has seven stations along the way.
At 4 p.m. monorail representatives stood at the station's entrance to offer would-be riders water and refunds for pre-purchased tickets.
Jim Crawford, of South Carolina, declined to get a ticket refund, but was glad to take a cup of water, as the National Weather Service reported temperatures Wednesday reaching 107 degrees.
"I'm gonna need this now because I guess I'm going to have to walk down the road there and wait for a hotel shuttle," Crawford said. "I'm a little disappointed, just because I have to find another way back and it's hot out."
Christian M. Chensvold of Los Angeles shared Crawford's disappointment.
"It's just such a great form of transportation, that's why I'm disappointed it's not working right now," Chensvold said. "I really liked using the monorail this week. It allowed me to be self-reliant and I didn't have to wait for a cab or bus. It was just clean and fun, and now I have to find a shuttle, which I'd rather not ride."
Stacey Wieties of Arkansas said she had gotten spoiled riding the monorail to and from the MAGIC convention for the past week.
"I loved riding it," Wieties said. "It was so easy. We could go back and forth and didn't have to wait. I'm really going to miss riding it tonight. We got so used to riding it everywhere, now that we can't use it tonight, I'm really going to miss it."
Monorail advertising executive Gary Johnson said the train's representatives were equally frustrated.
"We were excited about MAGIC because this was our chance to really show the monorail off," Johnson said. "So this is disappointing for us too. If the monorail wanted to pick a bad time for this to happen, this is it."
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