Two new, much-anticipated Orange Line trains have been out of service for repairs for more than a week. But on Tuesday morning, MBTA riders were greeted by one of the shiny, six-car trains.
“Spotted in the wild. Southbound at Tufts,” one rider tweeted Tuesday around 9 a.m.
According to MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo, one of the trains was indeed up and running in time for the morning commute. The second train is still being subjected to “rigorous testing” by the T’s vehicle engineers, he said, but should be back soon.
“The vehicle engineering team is targeting week’s end” for the second train, Pesaturo said in an e-mail.
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The transit agency pulled the two trains from the tracks on Sept. 20, after a door panel — known as a leaf — opened on a single train car while the train was in motion.
The T said the train stopped automatically when this happened, but the incident prompted an investigation into what went wrong
During its investigation, the MBTA learned that a component on the door, called a “bump stop,” had malfunctioned. This led the transit agency to replace the same piece of equipment on all 144 doors of the 12 new cars.
The T had anticipated having the trains back in service by Monday, Sept. 30. But while replacing the mechanisms on each train car, vehicle engineers decided a secondary component, which officials called an “electro-mechanical device,” should also be replaced, the T told the Globe last week.
These parts will also be installed on all the new Orange Line trains the MBTA has ordered to replace its fleet in the coming years. The replacements come at no cost to the transit agency, officials said.
Riders on Tuesday seemed relieved — and in some cases outright excited — to see one of the new trains once again.
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“Omg they do exist!,” one person tweeted, as a train rolled into the station.
Steve Annear can be reached at steve.annear@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @steveannear.