Seattle Scrunch of 2005
with photographs by Joshua Shields and Keith Sherry
commentary by Kim Pedersen
page one of two
Once upon a time there was a monorail. It was built for the Seattle
Century 21 World's Fair of 1962. Millions of passengers were carried
between the fairgrounds and a downtown station, a station that
straddled over Pine Street. Above are two postcard images of that
downtown station. After the fair, the station remained, as well
as the monorail, and for years the monorail continued to carry
passengers from downtown to what is now called Seattle Center.
In the late 1980s, the downtown monorail station was torn out
to allow developers to build a large new complex known as Westlake
Center. To keep the monorail operating, it was decided that a
new station could be squeezed onto the side of the complex. An
idea for allowing the trains to enter directly into the new center
had been rejected because of the space it would require. To avoid
covering the street below, the two new sections of track that
hugged up to the side of Westlake Center were pinched together
tightly, which would now only allow one train to be parked downtown
at a time. No such limitation existed before, and now drivers
would be required to always be aware of where the other train
was to avoid a collision at the pinched track. The narrowing of
the dual tracks can be seen in the upper center part of this Google Maps aerial photo.
photograph by Kim Pedersen
And so the Seattle Center Monorail resumed operations in 1989,
but now with a new limitation/hazard. To add to the hazard, a
curve in the track before the station prevents an oncoming train
from seeing if the station is clear, although there is a go, no-go
signal just before the track narrows.
photograph by Kim Pedersen
Rather than ramps between tracks or on the outsides of the tracks,
as all other monorails in the world have, the Westlake Center
Station has ramps that extend to the outer track to allow passengers
of the Red Train to board and unboard. For the Blue Train to be
in the station, the ramps must be retracted.
photograph by Joshua Shields
On November 26th of 2005, two trains were operating. The driver
of the Blue Train made the unfortunate mistake of losing track
of where the other train was, and for some reason also didn't
notice the "don't enter" signal. The Red Train was in
the process of leaving Westlake Station. Frantic waves of the
Red Train driver to the other driver were too late. Red and Blue
became black and blue. The resulting scrape-together essentially
locked the trains together, and passengers were evacuated by the
fire department by ladder.
photograph by Keith Sherry
Unbelievably, there were no serious injuries, but the accident
was certainly frightening for those on board as glass broke and
trains scraped together.
photograph by Joshua Shields
Here you can see the blind curve into Westlake Center where the
track pinches together. The two trains were pulled apart the following
night with the use of cranes. This method was used to pull the
trains back to their maintenance bay, which doubles as Seattle
Center Station. NEXT>>>
Scrunch Special one / two
 / back to the Special Features Page
|
