By brownpau
Foggy Bottom Platform Escalator Fail
Originally uploaded by brownpau
So you know how the Foggy Bottom Station escalators are actually a two-layered system of bottlenecks? Today the platform-to-mezzanine bottleneck was made worse by one of the two up escalators being blocked off (at rush hour with no work being done on it at the time, natch) so that hordes of work-bound Metro riders had to cram on to one single escalator. Good thing there wasn’t a fire. Thanks, Metro!
By brownpau
Orange and Blue Line riders had a hellish commute this morning thanks to a train down due to mechanical difficulties at Foggy Bottom station, causing single-tracking and trains held at stations up and down both lines in both directions. I waited on a Vienna-bound Orange Line train at Metro Center for about twenty minutes before wising up and getting on a taxi. You know it’s bad when the train operator doesn’t even use the word “momentarily.”
Unsuck DC Metro has collected TWITTER RAAAGE from the delays.
Update: From Get There blog, Orange Line problems explained. A combination of brake problems and communications dead zones led to a fifty-one minute delay on the failed Orange Line train before a Blue Line train could come within range to pick up communications. Both trains had to be offloaded before one could push the other to a rail yard.
By brownpau
Major Red Line delays this morning thanks to a track circuit malfunction plus a train offloaded for “mechanical difficulties” at Takoma station. Rail alerts just reported “Disruption cleared” but the Twitter feedback is rolling in. Thank you, Metro, for another morning rush hour of long waits and crowded trains.
By brownpau
(This is a video. You can play it. Listen for the horn!)
Piled on top of this morning’s Red Line woes, this train on the Red Line appeared to have its horn stuck in “VERY LOUD ON” mode, constantly blowing without stopping. (Insert clever ‘your mom’ joke here.) I got on at Union Station, got off at Metro Center, and that horn never stopped blaring through the tunnels and stations the whole time. Anyone else get to ride on the Eternal Horn Metro train this morning?
By brownpau
Here’s a video I took Tuesday night on the Metro of an electrical locker swinging open and shut as the train moved. Looks like someone didn’t close the doors properly, and I was wondering just how dangerous it was to have all these sensitive electronics and switches and leads exposed. This was on Blue Line train #3262AC. I’ve read enough about WMATA rolling stock to know that this is one of the Alstom-rehabilitated Breda cars, but I need a WMATA engineer or some other DC transit railfan to tell me what kind of systems are in this locker, specifically. Anyone know?
(And should I have hit the emergency call button? I don’t know if it was safe, but no one was touching it, and I was already at my stop and didn’t want to put the train out of service and cause cascading delays up and down the Blue and Orange Lines.)