WASHINGTON — The Metro subway system in Washington, D.C., plans to suspend all rail service for at least 29 hours to perform safety checks after a fire Monday morning that significantly impacted service, CBS affiliate WUSA reported.
The system will shut down at midnight Tuesday and remain closed until at least 5 a.m. Thursday, which is the regularly scheduled opening time.
Around 4:30 a.m. Monday, a fire broke out on the tracks outside the McPherson Square station.
The fire was out around two hours later, but Blue and Orange trains single-tracked between Foggy Bottom and Federal Triangle through the evening rush hour.
Metro service operated normally Tuesday morning.
The fire was caused by the same kind of electrical component that malfunctioned last year, causing a train to fill with smoke inside a downtown Washington tunnel.
A woman was killed in the incident.
With more than 700,000 daily riders, the system is the nation’s second-busiest transit network, reported the Associated Press.
