The Infuriating History of How Metro Got So Bad

[Jeff Smith]

In light of the recent shutdown, I thought this article, although a bit dated, was very interesting. I could not find that it had been discussed here before, but if it has, put a link here in the thread and I can merge.

Here it is: Washingtonian

Fair-use SNIPS:

The Infuriating History of How Metro Got So Bad
...
Four days after the party for Sarles, a 61-year-old woman died in the now-notorious smoke incident at L’Enfant Plaza, and a year of even more exasperating service outages began. There was the oil spill outside Medical Center, the derailed train at Smithsonian that closed six downtown stations at rush hour, the fire at Stadium-Armory that caused weeks of delays. By October, the chaos triggered by failures in routine operational systems was so bad that the Federal Transit Administration stepped in and took regulatory control of safety issues at Metrorail. Our subway is now the only one in American history to find itself under direct federal oversight.
...
Ray Scarbrough was pleasantly surprised when a Metro recruiter contacted him about a job at Metro’s Rail-Operations Control Center. Scarbrough, an assistant trainmaster for New Jersey Transit, wasn’t looking for a change. But the recruiter made a convincing pitch, and the $74,000 starting salary was a nice bump in pay. In the spring of 2014, he accepted.
...
But the impression didn’t last long. The classroom instructors relied heavily on books that Metro provided. And the books were riddled with errors that were glaringly obvious to trainees with experience, like Scarbrough, who had spent the bulk of his 18-year career inside command centers. His classmate Chuck Watkins, who had spent ten years at BNSF Railway and Amtrak, also noticed the errors—and the two began correcting the mistakes their instructors presented in class.
Soon, Scarbrough and Watkins say, the teachers began asking them to review class tests. “We’d go through each question and they would ask us, ‘What do you think?’ ” Watkins says. “We would answer, ‘Oh, this doesn’t make sense,’ or ‘This is not right.’ . . . . Then the next day, they would test us on this test that we just created.”
..
Riders have experienced the consequences of this paperless approach. During the smoke incident, ROCC employees bungled the emergency by activating the wrong tunnel fans, according to the NTSB. To prevent a future problem, the NTSB urged WMATA to develop what the controllers have resisted: written procedures.

The ROCC’s insular culture was partly shaped by financial motives. The center was sorely understaffed—according to the FTA, of 52 controller positions this past spring, 18, or about a third, were unfilled. Because of the shortage, controllers could significantly augment their salaries with overtime; the FTA found that some worked 12-hour shifts as many as seven days a week. “You’d have people in there making almost double their salary in overtime,” Scarbrough says. According to the trainees, the parking lot reserved for ROCC staff was filled with Mercedes and BMWs. “It looks like a CEO’s parking lot,” Colvin says.

[Ryand-Smith]

Legit question. how the (insert deity here) do they not have written, practiced, and drilled for causalities? This is the sort of thing I am drilled on (but operating a nuclear plant is different how). I mean you could literally write these procedures, and drill on them, This makes no sense whatsoever.

[MACTRAXX]

JS and Everyone: (3/24)

This article about the WMATA is a good read - and even though it may be "dated" (anything containing a historical
overview can be placed in that category) is shows how Metrorail had gone "downhill" from the positive feelings that
many felt about Metro back in the "glory days" of its first decade of 1976-1986 to what it has become today.

I found the "insider vs. outsider" culture experiences very interesting - especially how those who came to Metro
from other rail or transportation companies that were looked down upon and not as equals in the workplace there.

Metro needs an agressive maintenance plan - perhaps modeled something like NYC Transit's FASTRACK in which
a line segment or entire line is closed for a designated time period and a variety of improvement work gets to be
accomplished and alternate services on other lines offered such as added trains on open routes in proximity.

The comparison with Chicago did not mention the route and the project - it was the Dan Ryan (Expressway)
Re-Construction Project (Red Line south of Downtown) - and for two-thirds of the route of 11 miles there IS
a paralleling alternative - the Green Line L routes to Englewood (63/Ashland) and Woodlawn (63/Cottage Grove)
that was used to route Red Line trains to alongside regular Green Line service. The southernmost 4 miles of
the Dan Ryan route has Metra Electric stations within 1-2 miles east and Rock Island District service available
no more then 2 to 3 miles west of this line - it was far more then just buses that were used during closure of
this busy CTA rapid transit route. Multiple rail route alternatives from CTA and Metra were/are available.

I find the timing of this posted article interesting with the 40th anniversary of Metro's first route opening:
The Red Line from Rhode Island Avenue to Farragut North - now only three days away (3/27/76)
and what really should be a anniversary that Washington should be marking and celebrating looks
to be only bittersweet at best in the aftermath of the recent problems and mishaps that Metro has
had to deal with. This anniversary should have been a happy occasion marking this milestone in its
history but unfortunately it may be overshadowed or even overlooked by many.

MACTRAXX