Monorail taken out of service, may not be up in time for Bumbershoot

The Seattle Center Monorail is being taken out of service indefinitely and may not be running in time for the Bumbershoot arts and music festival on Labor Day weekend.

Operators have yet to pinpoint the reason the city-owned tourist line's power was interrupted Saturday, stranding at least 200 riders in the hot train.

The train stalled at the point where the tracks bank on a curve at Denny Way, but engineers testing the trains Monday could not replicate the problem, said Tom Albro, executive director of Seattle Monorail Services.

A separate stall Aug. 13 resulted from a surge in power, he said.

The monorail was re-entering service after a nine-month shutdown to repair damage from a sideswipe collision Thanksgiving weekend. An automatic emergency-braking system was added to prevent future crashes.

Now neither the operators nor the city are predicting when the line will restart.

Albro said the latest incidents highlight the need for a $4.5 million overhaul of the monorail's power, braking, and electric systems.

Albro said that as of Monday, it's an "open question" whether the one-mile line should restart without the extensive retrofitting.

"A significant amount of work needed to be done on the trains, to make them reliable for the foreseeable future," Albro said.

Monorail improvements are not part of a $1.6 billion transportation measure on the Seattle ballot this year.

Meanwhile, a pair of well-known transportation activists, Peter Sherwin and Patrick Kylen, said they've begun to assemble a committee of citizens to explore the idea of replacing the monorail with a streetcar that would link to a streetcar line now under construction at South Lake Union.

Mike Lindblom: 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com