If the flap of a butterfly’s wing can cause a tornado in Texas, then imagine what pushing a radio pedal at Metro can do to the morning commute.
Apparently, a stuck foot pedal is to blame for bringing down Metro’s rail radio system and snarling Red Line commutes Thursday morning. The agency’s radio communications system between trains and the operations center went down from 9:07 a.m. until 10 a.m., according to Metro spokesman Dan Stessel.
The transit agency initially did not know what brought the system down. Later, Stessel said, they learned that a foot pedal used to operate a communicator’s radio at the central command center was stuck in the “on” position, he said. That made it seem like the person was using the radio system, hogging the line.
That on its own did not slow down trains significantly, he said, as train operators follow speed readouts on the dashboard of their trains and read the signals along the tracks like stoplights. Track supervisors also talked to operators on the platforms, Stessel said.
But a Red Line train ran into problems near Medical Center, he said. Without a radio to communicate, the train operator had to get out of the train, then use a platform emergency call box to reach the operations center.
The single stopped train caused backups along the Red Line toward Glenmont as the tightly spaced trains bunched up. By 10:15 a.m., the delays had cleared up, he said.
