SEATTLE – Pulling two scrunched Seattle Monorail trains apart and north along their elevated tracks had never been tried before, but the system’s engineering crew lined up a giant hydraulic crane and a powerful tow truck Monday night to help with the effort.
The undertaking was expected to take at least two nights.
The initial goal was to separate the trains, which sideswiped each other on a tight curve near the downtown station Saturday evening and ground to a halt. Fire crews helped the 84 passengers down from the 28-foot-high dual track. There were no serious injuries.
A 120-ton hydraulic crane used a pulley system to get cable from a tow truck up to the trains. The tow truck was to drag the wrecked trains north toward the Seattle Center terminus and maintenance facility near the Space Needle.
The plan called for pulling both trains at once.
“The tracks become wider, so they’ll automatically be separated as they’re pulled north,” said spokesman Perry Cooper with the Seattle Center, which owns the monorail.
Crews also planned to assess the two trains to see if they can roll unhindered. The collision pulled one door off, broke windows and caused other damage to the two four-car trains.
Police, fire and transportation officials were all enlisted for the effort on Fifth Avenue.
A number of people, including Mayor Greg Nickels, turned out in temperatures hovering around 40 degrees to watch the operation Monday night.
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