Latest monorail glitch causes three-hour closure

In announcing that the monorail was back on track, Mayor Greg Nickels declared Friday that the World's Fair-era shuttle would "again be the important transportation link between downtown and Seattle Center."

OK, well, that assumed the trains wouldn't stall, which one of them did for about 15 minutes Sunday around Fisher Plaza, two days after a $3 million repair returned the monorail to service.

Stranded passengers walked across to the other train, and service was suspended for the afternoon. Workers diagnosed the ailment as a minor glitch in a compressor, which automatically tripped the braking system. The trains started running again at 6 p.m.

"The fix was equivalent to rebooting a computer," said Regan Erskine, Seattle Center spokeswoman.

Sunday's uh-oh was the latest folly for the monorail service, which had been down since the two trains sideswiped on Thanksgiving weekend. The damage to the cars was repaired and an automatic braking system was installed that is designed to prevent a similar crash.

Seattle Center tried to reopen the line July 18, but doors and air-braking systems malfunctioned during a test the night before — postponing the restart by four more weeks.

Service restarted Friday. But restarted service stopped suddenly at 2:45 p.m. Sunday when the Seattle Center-bound train stalled just shy of its destination.

Stuart Eskenazi: 206-464-2293 or seskenazi@seattletimes.com