Metro's circuits failing beyond June accident and Red Line

July 21, 7:49 PMDC Transportation ExaminerKatherine M. Hill

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The one source Metro has pointed to as the primary cause for the fatal collision on the Red Line last month has been a circuit failure in the track. The circuit is supposed to signal the trains and prevent collisions. General Manager John Catoe said last week (and NTSB has also said since it began the investigation) that the circuit is continuing to fail. And despite ongoing tests, the reason why the failure occurred, or is continuing, eludes Metro and investigators. But today we find out that circuit failure is system wide.

Excuse me while I hurl nervously in the bathroom down the hall.

From The Washington Post (h/t to @WashingtonCityPaper):

At least one-half dozen track circuits on four of the five lines of the transit system have failed to properly detect the presence of trains. The safe operation of a transit system requires that everyone know the location of trains at all times.

Crap. The same article says that Metrorail chief Dave Kubicek said Metro found "anomalies" in six track circuits. Those include Greenbelt, on the Green Line, Grosvenor-Strathmore on the Red Line, and Foggy Bottom on the Blue and Orange Lines. The Washington Post found more faulty circuits near Clarendon, Farragut North, Metro Center, and the Green Line platform at Fort Totten. (Apparently Fort Totten is plagued. This malfunction is unrelated to the accident and this platform was not related to the collision.) To add insult to injury, Catoe claimed last week ("as recently as July 16") that Metro's 3,000 circuits were fine. Totally A-OK.

And, echoing last week's continuing confession of confusion, not, Kubicek doesn't know what the cause is. Seriously, crap. Some of the circuits have been turned off, making the area "dark." Washington Post explains, while I crawl under the desk and mutter to myself:

When maintenance crews disable track circuits, they create "dark" stretches of the subway. That means trains have to proceed one at a time through the affected section of track at a maximum speed of 15 miles per hour, which is creating delays. It also means that controllers in Metro's downtown operations center cannot "see" the train as it moves through the affected area and the safe operation of the train is entirely in the hands of the operator. Track circuits range in length from 400 to 500 feet up to about 1,000 feet, with shorter circuits closer to the stations.

A disabled track circuit would also not be able to detect a broken or cracked rail or an improperly set switch, both of which can cause a train to derail.

When I was in my apartment alone for the weekend (and for an entire week over one notorious spring break, when I was almost abandoned in a desolate Baltimore after midnight by a city bus) I used to dream of all the horrible ways I could "go missing" unnoticed for an extended period of time. Embarrassingly, I found solace in knowing my instant message away messages, city bus pass, and security cameras would help "track" me. (This is, admittedly, a nightmare for most people, especially in Baltimore with a new debate over audio surveillance in city buses.) The Metro train going "dark" doesn't mean the same thing, in the same terms, but the untraceable train, and Metro's flakiness makes just as uneasy.

Metro is currently operating all of its trains manually. (And we can expect manual operation for a very long time.) So it would seem unlikely, or I'll bravely venture that it seems unlikely, that another collision is imminent with operators directing trains manually. Operators are banned from bringing cell phones onto the train (or buses, which is a larger relief to me), alleviating the growing paranoid fear (within reason, given the Los Angeles accident and the Boston indictment this week) regarding distracted operators.

My problem isn't going to be operators. For now, riders deserve transparency and honesty from Metro. And, of course, functioning circuits. Here's hoping Catoe cleans up this mess as soon as he can.