At 5 a.m. on Thursday, the Washington Metro regional commuter rail system resumed service after a hastily called 24-hour shutdown. New Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld had ordered the service pause so inspectors could look over 600 subway power cables, after a pre-commute fire broke out in one tunnel on Monday. The inspection crew found and repaired cables in three heavily trafficked areas where the damage was so serious that, if Metro had known about it, the lines would have been immediately shut down, Wiedenfeld said, adding, "This is what a safety culture looks like."
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