Silver Line standing up to Mother Nature

Adam Tuss, wtop.com

TYSONS CORNER, Va. – With heat kinks, derailments and power problems, it’s been a rough stretch of incidents for Metro recently.

But riders may find relief from these plaguing issues in the system’s newest extension, as the Silver Line grows through Fairfax County, and eventually into Loudoun County.

“In terms of a project perspective, that doesn’t concern me at all,” says Pat Nowakowski, who oversees construction of the Dulles rail project. “That’s normal operational stuff that everybody in the business has to deal with, and (Metro) is dealing with it right now.”

When asked if he thinks the Silver Line will be a stronger line than the rest of the system, Nowakowski said “I don’t know if ‘stronger’ is the right word.”

“WMATA does continually update their standards, so we’re not building it to the original 1970 standards that they built a lot of the system (to),” he says. “So we are building it to the latest standards.”

Nowakowski added that the Silver Line was not damaged in either the recent earthquake or derecho.

Just last week, the final aerial piece of the first segment of the Silver Line was put into place. There is now a complete connection from Falls Church through Tysons and continuing to Reston.

The first leg of the Silver Line, expected to open late next year, will have four stops in Tysons Corner.

WTOP’s Kandace Redd contributed to this report.

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(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)

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