County officials joining monorail probe

Stephen Curran

Friday, Sept. 3, 2004 | 11:21 a.m.

Clark County building officials, who oversee safety of the Las Vegas Monorail, have joined the investigation into what caused a 60-pound tire assembly to fall more than 20 feet from a moving train Wednesday.

Ron Lynn of the Clark County Building Department said Thursday the trains, which were not running this morning, would remain shuttered until monorail officials prove to the agency that the problems that prompted the ongoing shutdown have been corrected.

"The deadline (to correct the problem) is their own," Lynn said. "If they want to be down for two days or 20 days, that's their own operation. If it involves chaining something up, we will do it."

After the monorail resumes operation, Lynn said, the county will inspect the trains as often as daily until officials are satisfied that they are safe. Transit System Management, owner of the monorail, will be billed $75 an hour for each inspector's time, he said.

As required by law, monorail officials reported the incident to the building department immediately after the wheel fell off, Lynn said. A Nevada law passed in 1987 gave the department oversight over private amusement and transportation devices in the county, he said.

Meanwhile the federal agency normally in charge of investigating public transit malfunctions has not become involved, as the privately funded monorail used no federal funds to build the $650 million system, Melissa Sabatine, a spokeswoman for the Federal Transit Administration, said.

The agency will likely have authority over a planned second leg of the monorail connecting the Strip to downtown Las Vegas, scheduled to break ground within a year, as that stretch is using money from both the county and federal governments, Sabatine said.

The National Transportation Safety Board also does not oversee the monorail, because it does not cross state lines.

The county government's action came as a team of engineers brought in by monorail officials conducted an independent investigation into the malfunction. The man in charge of the monorail's parent company said Thursday the incident could have been prevented if operators had looked into a series of alarms that had indicated a problem aboard the trains.

The tire came loose about 8 a.m. Wednesday and fell from the monorail train, landing in a parking lot west of Koval Lane between Sands Avenue and Flamingo Road, Todd Walker, a spokesman for the monorail, said. No one was injured.

Cam Walker, president and CEO of Transit System Management, the for-profit parent of the Las Vegas Monorail Co., said Thursday that his company would pursue disciplinary action against the operators, who worked for Bombardier Transportation, the Canadian firm that built and now operates the trains. He would not specify what kind of action.

Engineers had not determined this morning when the system would reopen, he said.

"We want to make sure we have it open as soon as possible, but we want to make sure the safety experts feel it is ready for passengers," Todd Walker said.

Testing of the system was shut down for three days in January after a driveshaft fell in a controlled area, Todd Walker said.

The two malfunctions are unrelated, he said.

Transit System Management has brought in Booz Allen Hamilton, a McLean, Va.-based consulting firm, to conduct its investigation, Cam Walker said.

Bombardier has dispatched its own team of investigators to look into the problem, Helene Gagnon, a spokeswoman for Bombardier, said.

Gagnon said it was premature to discuss whether the employees who Walker said missed the warnings would face discipline.

"Right now we are very much cooperating with our consultants," she said. "We have to agree on the facts and hopefully we will agree on an action plan."

A Bombardier employee was suspended Aug. 16 after he mistakenly opened a set of doors facing a 25-foot drop while passengers were on board. The passengers inside were transferred to another car while it was inspected.

Operators employed by Bombardier must complete 120 hours of classroom training followed by six months of practical observation, Gagnon said.

The company and its construction partner, Granite Construction, amassed more than $12 million in fines stemming from a six-month delay in opening the system to the public.

Computer and mechanical glitches plagued the $650 million system while it was under construction, repeatedly pushing back the start date. Contracts required the trains to run trouble-free for 30 days.

The system had several problems after opening July 15, including a malfunctioning set of doors that locked passengers inside the train for about 10 minutes.