A Metro train operator who spent more than nine years out with an injured ankle had just finished “refresher training” 15 days before she derailed her train at Farragut North with more than 300 riders aboard last year, according to newly released federal documents. Wanda Olley failed a written test on her first try to become recertified as a train operator just days before the Feb. 12, 2010, accident, the documents show. She testified that she had not operated a train through the type of underground track where the derailment occurred since she had returned from her medical leave.
| Long-term foot injury sidelined operator before ‘refresher’ training |
| Wanda Olley underwent at most nine weeks of retraining – split into two segments months apart — when she returned to Metro after a nine-year hiatus, according to investigative documents. |
| New train operators must take a 13-week class to become certified, the transit agency has said. |
| Olley joined Metro in 1976 but had worked as a train operator for just over a year when she injured her foot on the job in 2000. She testified that she dislocated her foot during a fall while getting on a train. |
| The injury did not require surgery, she testified, but she initially went out on worker’s compensation, then permanent disability. |
| While she was gone, Metro created new safety policies, brought in new types of rail cars and opened new Metrorail stations. |
| Olley returned to Metro in late August 2009 but was there for less than three weeks when she reinjured the ankle and was out for another three months, the documents show. She underwent additional retraining from Dec. 7 to Jan. 28, 2010. |
| She described the classwork as a “refresher” course with multiple instructors subbed in and out and large class sizes that had to be divided. |
| “It was more intense back in the day,” she testified. “For the most part the training that I got was nowhere near the training that I got when I first started.” |
| She finished the retraining and won her certification after retaking a written test that she failed the day before. She then operated trains in rail yards before returning to shuttling around passengers. |
| To become a new train operator, Metro employees must take a 13-week class, including four to five weeks of on-the-job training, the agency has said. They learn train mechanics, the rail system, the train and track equipment. |
| Since the derailment, Metro has “implemented a more aggressive retraining program for operators who are out for an extended period of time,” Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein told The Washington Examiner in an e-mail. She could not provide specifics. — Kytja Weir |
“Inside I knew that I wanted to have a grasp of the information that I had before I left, and I didn’t have it all. OK?” she told National Transportation Safety Board investigators the day after the derailment. “I didn’t have it all.”
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