Monorail could be running for the holidays

Stephen Curran

Thursday, Dec. 23, 2004 | 11:09 a.m.

Executives at the Las Vegas Monorail expect to know by the end of the day whether the beleaguered system will carry passengers by Christmas, a spokesman for the company said.

Todd Walker, a spokesman for the monorail company, said the system could begin carrying passengers "as early as Friday," but he stopped short of announcing an official launch date.

Meanwhile a report expected today from a third-party firm hired by the monorail company could delay the system's long-awaited reopening, the county's principal engineer on the project said.

The Clark County Building Division, which has oversight over the monorail's safety, on Wednesday finished the final "scenario" tests to determine if the $650 million system is prepared for everything from fires to computer meltdowns to pieces falling from the elevated tracks. That latter scenario is one that the monorail experienced in real life and the reason why it has been closed since Sept. 8.

During the scenario testing, trains, which at times ran backwards to simulate emergency procedures, even carried sandbags to mimic a typical passenger load.

That process, which followed another battery of tests that required the trains to log more than 19,000 trouble-free miles combined, were completed on schedule Wednesday, said Dave Durkee, the county's principal engineer on the monorail.

Each train has to pass individual tests before it can carry paying passengers.

The final report, detailing how a series of harsh vibrations loosened the 60-pound wheel assembly that fell Sept. 1 and later the 6-inch-wide washers that fell from a moving train less than a week later, is expected to reach county officials early this afternoon, Durkee said.

The written report, prepared by Exponent, the consultant that worked to investigate the those malfunctions, will be hand-delivered to county offices by an Exponent executive flying from San Francisco. It must be reviewed by monorail executives and county engineers before the system can reopen, Durkee said.

Engineers, who had not seen the final report this morning, have been in contact with the Silicon Valley company and do not expect any surprises within its pages, he said.

But it may have already pushed back the reopening.

"If we had that report we would be completely done," Durkee said Wednesday afternoon as scenario testing was nearly complete.

By this morning, as all tests had been complete, the system's reopening is "all down to the Exponent report," he said.

Like Durkee, Walker, the monorail spokesman, said company executives do not foresee any unexpected findings in the report. In the meantime, company leaders and county engineers will review the report today and submit their findings to the county this afternoon.

County engineers, who bill the monorail company $75 an hour for their work, will then agree or disagree with the company's findings.

"If there's nothing in it that's unanticipated we could have the certificate of occupancy," the county document that would allow the system to reopen, Walker said.

Engineers from the monorail company and Bombardier, the Canadian firm that built and operates the trains, pinpointed a misaligned driveshaft as the culprit behind the three-month closure. The previous alignment, which proved incorrect given the layout of the elevated track, caused the undercarriages to vibrate and loosen equipment underneath.

That closure has cost the monorail company almost $9 million -- $85,000 a day -- in lost farebox revenue.