From P. Tatiana:Red Line from Friendship Heights to Silver Spring on the morning of Dec. 17.
New service helps morning commuters ease into the day.
Does Metro roll out the dance floor and drinks at night?
Either that, or Metro's going green, cutting down on unnecessary lights. Looks like the formula is five working lights per train car, spread out randomly.
It couldn't possibly be that Metro inspectors and supervisors neglected basic safety and maintenance issues--again.
Other items:
- Is anyone buying the "war on ____" line anymore? With regard to the war on safety, Metro GM John Catoe said "nothing, not even money, will hinder our efforts to make this system as safe as possible." A few hours later, in a press release outlining some pretty dramatic service cuts, one item stood out: "deferring $10 million for preventive maintenance" Hope none of those deferrals are safety-related, but the sound of it makes us a little queasy. On June 26, Catoe said "we have a safe system." (WMATA)
- Oy! Service cuts. No more 8-car trains? There were 8-car trains? (WMATA)
- SmartTrip changes promised--again. (WaPo)
The pictured car looks to be a 1000 series. One evening earlier this week I saw a 5000 series at L'Enfant at the front of train with no lights on
ReplyDeleteI think you've got an idea there. You see, Metro could solve all its budget woes if it would just convert one or two cars in each train into a bar.
ReplyDeleteCost cutting measure?
ReplyDeleteI'd ride the bar car. I wonder how that'd show up on FourSquare.
ReplyDeleteOn the way home this might actually be kind of nice, especially if I could pop open a beer (or six, at the rate it's been taking me to get home lately).
ReplyDeletePerhaps they could paint the inside car walls with day-glo reflecting paint? Glow your way to the office - everyone looks green. Hey! Might that stop those "online dressers" who just can't get dressed at home?
ReplyDeleteSometimes the cars run out of juice temporarily and the lights go dim. It usually gets better with a violent spark by a power hub. I have no idea if this has anything to do with that, though.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it has anything to do with temp losing juice. I rode in a car like this about a month ago. My entire trip (King St to Gallery Place) was in the dark.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking that it might be nice to do this as a conscious effort, much like morning and evening airline flights turn down the cabin lighting. Then I thought about the inherent dangers of dark cars leading to skeevy groping and robberies. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteWe'll be dimming the cabin lights for depar...oh wait, the train is broken.
ReplyDeleteThis happens pretty regularly on the Blue and Orange lines when they approach Rosslyn heading into downtown. They regularly end up bottlenecked before the station ("Train ahead, train ahead."), and when they stop to wait the lights often go out on the train except at each end of the car. Very odd, but after the first couple of times you get pretty used to it.
ReplyDeleteThe lights in the College Park Metro garage elevators have been out this week, probably to hide the window dirt.
ReplyDeletePress reports widely reported a WMATA plan to "defer preventive maintenance." I believe it may have also been worded that way in an initial WMATA press release. However, I was in attendance at the WMATA board meeting and the plan presented by Catoe proposes to use $12 million in capital funds to pay for scheduled parts replacement (this is currently paid for by the operating budget) and another $10 million from federal ARA funds to pay for "preventive mainteance" that is currently paid for out of the operating budget. The proposal isn't to defer mainteance but does raise questions about what capital projects won't be done as a result of using capital money for operating.
ReplyDelete