Doors on all but one of the six passenger compartments on the Monongahela Incline were functional Friday and the system was back to near-normal operations, Pittsburgh Regional Transit said.

The agency made shuttle buses available Thursday after problems with doors to four of the passenger compartments limited capacity on the incline, which carries passengers from Station Square on Pittsburgh’s South Side to Grandview Avenue in Mount Washington. A contractor was able to fix three of the doors but had to order parts to fix the fourth one, PRT spokesman Adam Brandolph said.

The incline features two passenger cars on parallel tracks where one goes up while the other comes down. Passengers normally enter through three sets of doors on the outside of both cars, one set on the car and one set on the platform.

Brandolph said all three platform doors on one car and one platform door on the other weren’t working on Thursday. That left only two compartments available for six or seven passengers each, so the agency added a shuttle bus for passengers who didn’t want to wait.

Now, with only one compartment not available, no shuttles are running.

The incline carries about 600,000 passengers in a normal year, but many of them are tourists in warm-weather months, so Brandolph said there hasn’t been much backup for riders.

“It’s not prime tourist season,” he said. “It’s freezing outside. It’s not running that far behind.”

The incline has had a series of problems since contractors for PRT completed an $8.1 million mechanical and electrical upgrade and restored the stations to their 1870 look. Those problems included condensation in a computer room triggering the emergency braking system, brake resistors not stopping cars because the wrong size was used, and doors on the cars slipping out of place.

No one has been injured in any of the incidents, but they caused closures ranging from a few days to several weeks.

Last spring, the agency hired a consultant to review its maintenance and operating practices on the incline. Talson Solutions found no serious problems but recommended minor changes to make the system more reliable.

The original electrical contractor on the project, Westmoreland Electric Services, remains responsible for the system and PRT has not paid extra to fix the problems.

Ed covers transportation at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at eblazina@unionprogress.com.

Ed Blazina

Ed covers transportation at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at eblazina@unionprogress.com.