Photo by Barbara Krawcowicz

Commuters who depend on Metrorail began the week with a disjointed trip to work, with several lines experiencing lengthy delays and one busy station briefly closing altogether.

Metro’s hectic morning began about 7 a.m., when a track problem near Arlington Cemetery caused Blue Line trains to briefly operate along a single track between that station and Foggy Bottom. The single-tracking in turn backed up operations along the Orange Line; delays on both lines grew to as much as 20 minutes.

And at 7:40, the Dupont Circle station was shut down when its bank of escalators ending on Q Street NW went out of service. With the station’s south entrance still closed for reconstruction, Metro officials closed the station and ordered trains to travel between Woodley Park and Farragut North uninterrupted. Metro spokesman Dan Stessel says that one escalator failed and another needed to be shut down in order to make repairs. The escalators came back online and the station re-opened about 8:45.

But during that gap, the Green, Blue and Yellow lines all suffered more delays. A train at the Braddock Road station experienced a brake problem about 8:25, causing Blue and Yellow line trains to be set back by several minutes, Stessel says. Trains on both lines navigated via single-track around the disabled train for about half an hour until it was finally cleared from the area. It took another 20 minutes to shake out the residual delays.

The status of the Green Line is a bit murkier, though. A Metro spokesperson reached by phone did not seem to be aware of 12-to-15 minute delays on the Green lines through downtown D.C., which were reported to be occurring in both directions by Metro’s Twitter account about 8:30 a.m. The Washington, D.C. Fire Fighters Association reported that fire crews responded to a report of smoke in the tunnel between Archives-Navy Memorial and L’Enfant Plaza, but upon their arrival no smoke was found in either the tunnel or L’Enfant Plaza.

Stessel says that he believes the Green Line delays were caused by a malfunctioning train at West Hyattsville, but it “wasn’t a big issue.”