One percent. What if you got things right on your job one percent of the time? Think you’d still have a job? Probably not … unless you are one of a very small group of subway railcar manufacturers in the world.

Only two of the 184 Series 6000 railcars made for the Washington Metro system by Alstom Transportation didn’t need some reconfiguration, some part change. I said the other day that I was glad that these defects were caught now rather than after the bulk of these cars had been delivered and I still believe that. However, I seem to recall that there were similar problems with the cars delivered in a rush to get the Green Line opened a few years back.