Passenger Screen Gate Alarm Triggered Skyline Train To Stall, City Says
Because the train stopped at a track crossing, other trains weren’t able to get around it.
City officials provided an update Wednesday regarding what prompted a Skyline train to stall Tuesday on the rail line’s elevated guideway, temporarily halting passenger service across four stations.
A passenger screen gate alarm at the Kalauao Pearlridge station triggered the driverless train to stop at 1:40 p.m. at a nearby track crossing, they said.
That alarm was triggered by a gate “intrusion,” according to Department of Transportation Services spokesman Travis Ota. Rail’s operations team is still investigating the root cause of the intrusion, he said in an email.
The train that stopped was not in service, and it was heading back to the rail system’s maintenance yard next to Leeward Community College when the safety trigger occurred, Ota said.
Because it stopped right at a track crossing, other nearby trains were not able to move around it, he added. The train headed back to the maintenance yard at 6:10 p.m. and normal operations resumed.
The incident was the first of its kind reported by DTS since Skyline service along the line’s first 10.7 miles opened on June 30. It shut down the passenger service between the Halawa station at Aloha Stadium and the Halaulani station at Leeward Community College.
Service continued to operate as normal between the Pouhala station at the Waiphau Transit Center and the Kualakai station at the line鈥檚 western end. Skyline passengers had been encouraged to use bus routes and take shuttles as alternatives.
