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Hoverboards No Longer Allowed On Metra Trains

By Joe Ward | January 15, 2016 9:50am | Updated on January 15, 2016 9:52am
 Starting Friday, anyone boarding a Metra train with a hoverboard will be turned away.
Starting Friday, anyone boarding a Metra train with a hoverboard will be turned away.
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CHICAGO — Taking a Metra train? You're going to have to leave the hoverboard at home.

Metra said Friday that it will no longer allow the self-balancing scooters known as "hoverboards," saying the machines posed a fire hazard.

Starting Friday, anybody trying to board a Metra train with a hoverboard will be turned away, Metra said in a press release Friday.

"The safety of our passengers and employees is our top priority," Metra CEO Don Orseno said in a news release. "There have been multiple reports of fires and injuries caused by hoverboard use throughout the country, and while there have been no incidents on Metra, we simply want to be proactive by banning this potential fire hazard from being carried on our trains."

The popular, two-wheeled scooters have been in the news for their allegedly propensity to spark fires.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has launched an investigation into the root cause of the fires. The commission is investigating 28 fires in 19 different states, Metra said.

Hoverboards have already been banned by all major U.S. airlines, Amtrak and other train services across the country. They have been banned from 20 college campuses, including the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, according to Metra.

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