Metro Reports Problems at Two Red Line Stations

WASHINGTON (AP) - The delays continue, but Metro says service is slowly getting back to normal after problems with smoke at one station and an accidental power failure at another.

Trains had to share a single track for about three hours at the Farragut North station downtown because of a smoking insulator on one track starting at 12 p.m.

Repair crews for a time thought they had taken care of the problem, but the same thing happened about an hour later.

Metro spokeswoman Cathy Asato said normal service resumed by about 3:15 p.m.

Another problem on the Red Line blocked trains from running through the Friendship Heights station for about an hour starting at 12:10 p.m.

In that case, there was no power on either track, so Metro ran shuttle buses from the Medical Center station to Van Ness.

Asato said these problems aren't related to the smoke and fires that crippled the transit system last month.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)