ARLINGTON, Va. (WJLA) – You don’t need Metro rider Victor Powell to tell you that today is not the day you want to be waiting 15 minutes for a train:

“Oh my God, I’ll probably be an icicle by the time it gets here…”

The cold has indeed taken a toll on Metro’s infrastructure. A picture from rider Kim Taylor shows the crowd of people waiting for the Blue and Yellow Lines Thursday morning after the frigid temperatures caused a rail to crack near the Reagan National Airport station.

And on Wednesday, Miranda Green snapped a photo of this packed Orange Line platform after the cold caused a variety of problems on several trains on various lines – something the agency says happened during our last deep freeze.

Engineers are now trying to figure out the cause:

“Deep freezes, metal contracts, what’s going on in the car in terms of moisture has different focuses for us — we’re trying to get through that,” explained WMATA General Manager Richard Sarles.

WSSC crews braved the cold to start repairs on a six-inch water main that broke in Silver Spring and cut off water to nearly two dozen customers.

“We have water on hand, just to be on the safe side,” said area resident Robert Hale. “A lot of people around here do that because we’ve lost the water quiet often.”

Though there were only a handful of main breaks today, that is expected to change in the coming days as the water temperature continues to drop:

“All of a sudden, that really cold water starts moving through our distribution system after we treat it and then we start to see an increase in water main breaks,” said WSSC spokesperson Lyn Riggins.
Read more: http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/01/metro-infrastructure-affected-by-cold-weather-99562.html#ixzz2rn5tUwDs
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