Same problem, different city.

Visiting DC from philly today and doing a little riding on METRO. About 330ish boarded a red line to shady grove. Announcements being made at Metrocenter saying red line service back to normal, bue train operator making announcements that the train was being held by central due to a problem at union station.
No different than philly, two sources cant even get the same info out to the customers.....

Stuff like that tends not to happen much on the Metro. It could be that one person just has older news (not different news) and just hasn't been updated yet. It generally has minimal impact on riders and if it was a serious issue I'm sure most personnel would be radioed the up to date info. Today's storms haven't helped at all either, traffic lights out, buildings powerless, that stuff makes it to the Metro.

Davis

At least no power lines fell across the B Route this time...

We did sit for what seemed like at least 5 minutes after i boarded.
I have no idea how long the train was there before we arrived. The already packed train became even more crowded as we waited.

One observation though..

We rode Orange, Red and Green lines today, and the operators were making announcements almost to the point of my wishing they would just shut up....
We were delayed due to a backup getting into Silver Spring, and must have stopped, then moved up and stopped again 4 or 5 times, and every time we'd stop there was another announcement that we were stopped due to a back up and would be moving shortly. I got that message after the first stop....

The real problem was the PA systems that were unintelligable. We rode every type of car but 4000's and they were all the same....barely understandable.
I don't fault the operators for doing what they are instructed to do, but it would be a much more useful if you could understand what was being said.

Station announcements suffered as well.
In Philly getting delay information might be an excersize in futility sometimes, but at least the automated annunciators on the busses and Market Frankford line are easily understood.

Another issue we had was with the day passes.
We boarded at New Carrollton and rode around for a few hours before going to Union Station for dinner. When we tried to get out of the paid area at Union, the turnstiles wouldn't let us out.
We went to the station agent who directed us to the gate exit.
When we got back on at Union after dinner, same thing.
None of the agents seemed to question the situation, but I wonder was there some problem with the day passes today, or do they get flagged somehow if you spend too much time on the system between entry and exit?

All in all I'd give Metro a B grade.
Good service, good information when you could understand it.
Room for improvement though....

It is a bit dissappointing that a system that should be the showcase of our country hasn't gone to automated announcement systems.
SEPTA can screw up a free lunch sometimes, but even they have managed do do that....

Well on the Metros they did originally use automated announcements. One rumor I heard why they stopped was that trains were advertised and were running in Automatic mode (computer driving) and to ensure that there was a vigilant person up in the cab they decided to make them do announcements.

I have found that the PA Systems can sometimes be ratty but more often than not the operators don't speak loud enough (rather mumble) and they don't annunciate making it harder for people who don't ride everyday to get their bearings.

I'm glad you enjoyed the system despite some of the issues you may have had. I was using my SmarTrip card (plastic like a credit card) yesterday without issue but one thing I know is the paper metrocards (are day passes printed on paper) can get demagnetized by a variety of things, especially metal detectors at museums, that could have been your issue.

Davis

"SchuminWeb"
At least no power lines fell across the B Route this time...

No but but parts from the canopy roof were blown off at King Street and landed the tracks resulting in single tracking for just under 2 hours.

WTOP radio reported that part of the canopy at King Street fell on the tracks. After hearing that service was restored in a relatively short period I think we can safely assume it was only some of the sheet metal that blew off.

What kind of parts, anything big or just small debris?

Davis

"strench707"
What kind of parts, anything big or just small debris?

The reports i heard and read didn't go into much detail. WMATA didn't even post a press release on the event. Like I said it was likely a few sheet metal panels that blew off.

If anybody passes by the station they should be able to see what the damages are.

I'll be interested to see whether it was pieces off the old canopy or the new canopy, or a little bit of both. The canopy at the north end of the station was only built in 2006, while the older canopy was built 20 years prior...

Otherwise, I remember Dick White saying in a Lunchtalk chat that having the operators do PA announcements in order to remain engaged while in the cab. At the time, Metro was running the trains automatically. Additionally, discussion somewhere - probably SubTalk, a long time ago - revealed that the 1000-Series originally had equipment for automated announcements, but the equipment was never utilized in revenue service and later removed, and that subsequent car series had no automated announcement capability.

SchuminWeb wrote:At least no power lines fell across the B Route this time...

My dad's a shift supervisor at the PEPCO control center and was working when those lines came down. He ended up sitting the desk and doing all the switching for the incident - after the fact, the story is pretty funny, it was pretty much a circus trying to keep everyone (PEPCO crews, contractor crews, EMS and WMATA Ops folks) all on the same page.

"SchuminWeb"
I'll be interested to see whether it was pieces off the old canopy or the new canopy, or a little bit of both. The canopy at the north end of the station was only built in 2006, while the older canopy was built 20 years prior...

Same question crossed my mind when I heard the report on WTOP.

Sand Box John wrote: WMATA didn't even post a press release on the event.

Metro failed to admit/explain a major delay? I'm SHOCKED, just SHOCKED....

(60 car: WMATA is famous for never-ever explaining a problem. More recently they will admit there is one [when it is obvious...] but if think you'll find out why....)

"farecard"
Metro failed to admit/explain a major delay? I'm SHOCKED, just SHOCKED....

Notification of the disruption may have appeared in their Rail Alert stream. During the time of the incident I was in no position to check.

We will have to wait until next week to see if it is in the archived service reports.