Metrorail operators scared to operate trains after crash
By: Kytja Weir
Examiner Staff Writer
July 8, 2009
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| Riders use the Red Line at Metro Center during evening rush hour in D.C. (Examiner) |
Some Metro train operators are scared to operate trains in the wake of the recent deadly crash, according to their union president, despite the transit system's assurance that it was a freak occurrence.
"We haven't received anything that would make us think this was an isolated incident," said Jackie Jeter, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689. "I do need to know that it is not going to happen again. I do have people out there who are afraid."
Metro and federal officials are searching for answers in what caused the deadly June 22 crash that killed nine and injured more than 70 people. It was the worst crash in the transit system's 33-year history.
So far the National Transportation Safety Board's investigation has pinpointed a malfunctioning track circuit and a data transmitter that help locate trains and stop them before they run into each other. It appears the system may have failed to show the stopped train on the tracks, causing the traveling train to run along the curving track at normal speed and slam into the one in front of it.
But the investigation will likely take months to be complete.
The transit system has finished testing all of the some 3,000 circuits in the system, spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said. "Everything passed," she said. The transit system also is studying system data daily instead of monthly as it has in the past.
"At this point we believe it was an isolated freak occurrence," she said.
Jeter said she plans to speak to Metro's general manager about finding ways for concerned operators to transfer to their previous positions until they can get more answers. Moving from the position is unusual as operating trains is seen as a coveted step up from driving buses.
Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel said no train operators had requested transfers as of Tuesday and no one had been reassigned.
The transit agency has followed the union's demand that it place all of its 1000 Series rail cars in the middle of the trains, instead of at the front and back, to help allay concerns that the model of cars involved in the crash are not "crashworthy" and collapse upon impact. All operators are operating trains in manual mode, instead of automatic as occurred during the crash.
"Manual mode is a good thing," Jeter said. "You don't have to worry about this kind of thing occurring if they are in manual mode."
