NTSB investigating cause of DART train fire in Dallas

DALLAS - The National Transportation Safety Board is on the ground in Dallas investigating Wednesday’s fire on a Dallas Area Rapid Transit train. 

Service in Downtown Dallas is also still delayed because the damaged train remains in the same spot where it caught fire.

DART Train Fire Investigation

What we know:

The NTSB’s investigators and DART engineers were on the damaged train on Thursday to try to figure out how and why it caught fire.

"There will be several investigations, so making sure that all of our internal team has a chance to look at what’s going on, and then of course we have safety regulators to come in and make sure that they get to do an investigation as to the cause and what happened," said DART spokeswoman Jeamy Molina.

DART’s light rail runs on electricity from high-voltage substations and cable lines called catenary systems that send power to the trains through a device called a pantograph.

Something malfunctioned in the pantograph or the catenary system.

"That’s what we’re trying to investigate right now," Molina said. "We don’t know exactly what the cause was and it will take us some time to make sure that we do that. We want to make sure that we go in, look at the trains themselves, look at the catenary system in those areas and we are trying to do that as fast as we can so that we can know what it was and then also get the line in that part of the CBD back open."

Dallas Train Fire Injures 6

The backstory:

Forty people were evacuated from the burning train on Wednesday during the afternoon rush hour, either on their own or with help. 

About 10-15 of those passengers were treated by Dallas Fire-Rescue paramedics, and six were taken to the hospital with minor burns.

What they're saying:

DART and Dallas officials said they are thankful because the incident could have been a tragedy on the tracks.

"When an incident like this does happen, it is very serious. And we were very thankful that there was quick thinking on the part of the passengers on the train to remove themselves, the operator himself to help passengers get off the train yesterday, and that what they went through was not worse than what it was yesterday," Molina said.

Dallas DART Delays

What we know:

DART riders were warned about continued service delays on Thursday.

Although power was restored to the train system, delays were expected at surrounding stations due to temporary service changes as crews worked to recover from the fire damage.

The stations affected include Victory Station, Union Station, and Pearl Station.

Bus and rail field support staff were sent to CBD, Union, Victory, Deep Ellum, Cityplace, and Mockingbird stations to assist customers with bus bridges and shuttles.

What's next:

The damaged train will not be moved until the NTSB team completes its work. 

Then the tunnel can be cleared, any necessary repairs can be made, and the service will return to normal.

DART did not give an estimated timeline for all of that, but encouraged passengers to check DART.org for updates.

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