Light rail service back on track after stall at UW Station clogs system

Sound Transit light rail is running normally again, after a train stall next to the southbound University of Washington Station platform clogged service for an hour Friday morning.

The incident at the underground station comes three days before Sound Transit and other transportation agencies will carry FIFA World Cup soccer fans starting Monday - and despite a flurry of spring maintenance outages meant to guarantee reliable mass transit.

Sound Transit notified riders at 10 a.m. to expect 25-minute delays between Lynnwood and UW. Before long, Eastside and South Seattle trains were being turned back before reaching downtown Seattle, and some trains north of UW were simply stuck.

Regular service returned at 11:10, though travel was expected to remain slow for a while.

UW Station is equipped with a large crossover switch complex, immediately south of where people get on a train, that can help with detours.

But once again, the traveling public was thwarted by Sound Transit's lack of crossover switches downtown at Pioneer Square of Symphony Station, an upgrade suggested in 2025 by an independent analysis.

Based on the agency's contingency plan, some 2 Line trains from the Eastside were turned back at Judkins Park Station instead of entering downtown Seattle. Some 1 Line trains coming from Rainier Valley and Sea-Tac are turning back at Stadium Station. For a time, some trains were making it north past Capitol Hill Station toward Lynnwood, very slowly, Bendon said.

Preliminary reports suggest that a brake fault, in which electronic brakes are activated unintentionally, caused the stall.

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