Extreme heat might be the unexpected culprit behind the recent service interruptions experienced by Dallas Area Rapid Transit passengers.
DART issued a series of alerts on August 1 warning commuters that there were rail service delays through downtown Dallas.
At around 7:30 p.m., two posts on Twitter warned that an incident near West End Station had caused disruptions on DART’s four main rail lines: blue, red, green, and orange.
Shuttle bus services were provided in lieu of the trains, with the transit authority apologizing to passengers for the inconvenience.
Gordon Shattles, a spokesperson for DART, later explained that the shutdown was due to the catenary system — the overhead wiring that supplies electricity to train cars — sustaining damage, according to CBS News Texas.
The incident was potentially related to the hot weather, with Shattles saying that high temperatures can affect the tension in the wires, causing them to expand and go slack.
This meant that the pantographs on the train cars weren’t making contact with the wiring and thus could not draw power to function.
While the problem had been resolved by the following morning, the toll of sweltering temperatures across North Texas extends far beyond Dallas’ rail services.
As reported in The Dallas Express, the more than 20-day stretch of temperatures over 100 degrees has triggered some peculiar automobile issues.
While troubles with car batteries and tires are most common, recently motorists have been complaining about damaged wiper blades scratching up windshields and spongy brakes.
Moreover, the dry and hot conditions have kicked fire season into high gear, with multiple fires breaking out along the Trinity River recently, as covered in The Dallas Express.
The Texas A&M Forest Service had logged 26 fires and 2,264 acres burned across the state as of August 2.
A break from the heat isn’t expected until a cold front pushes into North and Central Texas late Sunday, possibly bringing some rain and cooler temperatures, according to the National Weather Service.
