Officials at the Kawasaki Rail Car plant in Lincoln say they are working to correct wiring problems that are causing new 7000 Series cars to be taken out of service in the Washington, D.C., area.
According to a report issued earlier this month by the Washington Area Metropolitan Transit Authority, all 564 cars delivered to the agency so far have a wire-crimping defect that was discovered by the authority's resident inspectors in Lincoln.
The defects apparently went unnoticed by Kawasaki workers during the manufacturing of the cars.
The 548 cars that already are in service will have to be rotated out over the next year or so to have the defects fixed, the authority said. Repair costs will be borne by Kawasaki.
The authority also said it was halting all deliveries of remaining cars until the defect is fixed, although deliveries should resume by the end of the month.
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Jason Hellbusch, director of administration for Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing Corp. in Lincoln, said the defects identified do not affect the safety or functionality of the cars, an opinion that is shared by the Federal Transit Administration, which told The Washington Post last week that it has no evidence the wire-crimping issues pose a safety risk.
Hellbusch said Kawasaki has established "corrective and preventative" actions in its rail car operations.
"We will continue to work with our customer to correct any issues with cars that are already in service and provide the highest-quality cars moving forward," Hellbusch said in an emailed statement.
Despite the wire-crimping issue, the report noted that the quality of the cars being delivered has improved over the past two years, with the number of potential problems per car dropping from 22 in May 2016 to six in May of this year.
The roughly $2 billion contract calls for Kawasaki to deliver 748 of the cars, with the final ones likely to be delivered in 2019.