Something Going on At Gallery Place/Metro Center Metro Stations?

but of course…, originally uploaded by cacophony76.

Anyone having problems here? A reader writes that they saw some sort of explosion at Gallery Place/Chinatown.

@dcfireems from twitter says:
“Metro Ctr / Gallery Place smoke in tunnel and/or fire under train Metro Ctr being evac”.

@metroopensdoors says:
“Red Line: Trains sharing same track btwn Judiciary Sq. & Farragut N. due to smoke on tracks at Metro Center. Delays in both directions.”

More as details become available.

Update: 9:50am: From a reader:

“I was actually at the station when it happened — a little before nine this morning, the red line train heading to metro center was slowly leaving when the station when it seemed to cause a series of loud cracking noises. Each was louder than the next — finally, a loud boom and the station filled with smoke. I was able to get a picture of he cloud coming through the station, but it doesn’t do it justice. Traffic stopped immediately; and, as I caught the orange line, I think I heard the fire alarm go off. What’s really curious about the whole incident is that the train was stopped for a few minutes before leaving, as if they knew something was wrong.”

Another witness:

“I was actually on the train. What happened was at Judiciary Square we had to let a sick passenger off the train. Then pulling out of Gallery Place, there was a mechanical malfunction, followed by stopping and starting of the train and then a series of explosions (with little fire and sparks everywhere) under the first car and the car I was on, and there was smoke in some of the cars. People were freaking out about it, but we got to metro center safely and offloaded and no one was hurt or pushed off the train. (I commend the train operator for keeping everyone calm!)

The other person is right, we did hold at Gallery Place for a few minutes while the train conductor told us that there was a malfunction but she couldn’t let us into the tunnel and we were going to make it to Metro Center and then offload. Shortly after this announcement were the other explosions including the one outside my car, followed by the people yelling to stop the train, be let off, hit the emergency button, etc.”

Update 10:40am  – Metro reports all’s back to normal:

“At 10:12 a.m., normal service has resumed on the Red Line after the removal of an outbound six-car train on the Red Line at Metro Center. The disabled train lost one of its collector shoes. Each train has four collector shoes which connect to the third rail.”