MARTA lightning strike worst one in 30 years

By Kristi E. Swartz

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

MARTA has finished work on the east-west line between the CNN Center and Ashby rail stations, allowing trains to operate on both tracks for the first time since lightning struck the area on Monday.

But it may take up to another four days before crews finish repairing the lines damaged between the Ashby and Bankhead rail stations, officials said. Until then, trains will run on a single track.

The lightning strike that hit two places on MARTA’s east-west line is the worst one to hit the transit system in 30 years, an official said Tuesday.

“It’s like if lightning strikes your house and gets into your wiring and burns it on out,” Rich Krisak, the assistant general manager of rail operations, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Lightning struck the line somewhere between the Vine City and Ashby rail stations as fierce storms moved through the area Monday morning.

The damage has caused MARTA trains to run on a single track on east-west lines between the Ashby and CNN Center rail stations, and between the Ashby and Bankhead stations.

Lightning entered MARTA’s system of cables that controls a train’s speed and its route, Krisak said.

Lightning also followed those cables to a set of what Krisak said were sophisticated electronics and burned everything in between.

MARTA crews said they haven’t been able to determine where the lightning struck first, but “they are pretty convinced that both the Vine City and the Ashby issues were created by the same lightning strike because both happened at the same time,” Krisak told ajc.com

Crews have been working “around the clock” since Monday to repair the damage, Krisak said. MARTA has hired Atlanta-based Cleveland Electric Co., a contractor that has done other work for the transit agency in the past, Krisak said.

MARTA’s system has built-in self-protection to handle lightning strikes, Krisak said. Typically it would act like a computer and reboot.

Not this time, he said.

“This is a pretty big hit,” Krisak said.

Crews have to repair the automation control system that gives trains its commands for speed and routing, Krisak said.

“We’re trying to get it back together as quickly as we can,” he said. “Some of the components are not exactly the in-stock, off-the-shelf components because we don’t expect them to blow up.”

Krisak said MARTA has received few complaints from customers. During the off-peak hours, trains are delayed only two or three minutes.

During rush hour, however, some trains will run from Indian Creek to the CNN Center rail station, and others will be able to pass through to A.E. Holmes, to prevent further delays, he said.

Catherine Ross, Director of Georgia Institute of Technology’s Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development, said the rail system is built “sufficiently tough” to withstand rough weather.

That lighting was able to disrupt service so severely was a fluke.

“It’s rare, but it does happen. It’s like a 100 year flood,” Ross said.

The important question is whether budget-strapped MARTA has the resources to make safe, quick repairs, Ross said. When lines go down, rail riders have few alternatives other than to take to their cars.

“It [the area] would be one big parking lot,” she said.

Separately, MARTA continues to investigate a fire in a Midtown tunnel that interrupted rail traffic on the north-south line between Five Points and Lindbergh on Monday. Krisak said officials aren’t sure if that was weather related. A cable had burned up, causing smoke in the tunnel, he said.

Reporters Willoughby Mariano, Christian Boone and Larry Hartstein contributed to this story.