If trains were planes?
May 15, 2009, 9:44 PM
I’ve been known to comment about Metro’s YouTube videos as being beyond corny, but this one was actually pretty good. This time, Metro did a spoof of the in-flight safety videos that the airlines do. Take a look:
Ask our IT manager at work – I was laughing out loud watching this video during my lunch hour. My favorite spot was when the lady said, “Smoking, eating, or drinking is not allowed,” and waggled her finger at the camera, making fun of a Delta Airlines safety video where the woman said, “Smoking is not allowed on any Delta flight.” That Metro actually spoofed that was hilarious, and it shows that Metro has certainly graduated from last year’s controversial Pope bobblehead ad. Plus they showed a little attitude, saying, “We really don’t care what you’re having for dinner, or who needs to pick up the kids.” Now if they would also mention those whack jobs who sing so loudly from their seat that I can’t even drown them out with my big headphones (it really happened – thankfully, he got off at Forest Glen, still singing), sing songs from the 1960s badly off-key, and people who carry religious signs while railing against George W. Bush (even if I do agree with them). Additionally, kudos to Metro for showing the computer-animated customers getting mad when discussing door problems. After all, it only takes one jackass to cause a door problem, and when that happens, we all get offloaded.
Meanwhile, Metro apparently mix-and-matched their rail cars in the video, showing Alstoms, CAFs, and Breda rehabs, and as a result, made some mistakes. Most prominent was when they referenced the glow-in-the-dark exit signs on all emergency exits. The way Metro was talking about it, you’d think that these existed on all 1,140 rail cars in their fleet. In truth, these signs exist on only 364 rail cars – the Breda rehabs. These signs are not present on the Rohrs, the Breda 4000s, the CAFs, or the Alstoms. Thus while Metro is leading passengers to rely on these glowing signs in an emergency, these signs do not exist on a majority of the cars. Another oopsie, though less serious, is that some rail cars (Alstoms) also have intercoms at the center of the car, beneath the emergency door release handle.
As a side note, I’ve used the emergency intercoms twice, both for situations that were important, but not really emergencies. Once was on November 28, 2006 on CAF 5191, when I alerted the operator that they had never turned the interior lights on. A second time was on July 25, 2007, when, on Rohr 1064, I used the intercom to alert the operator that I was sending people through the bulkhead door when the doors failed to open at a station stop.
So all in all, it was an amusing and well-produced video, though Metro made a mistake in leading people to believe that some safety features exist on all cars, when they actually don’t.
Web site: "Metro Out to the Ball Game", another one of Metro's cheesier videos
Song: Oh, and you'd better believe I snagged the clean recording of the door chimes off of this video. That might come in handy, and it certainly beats the pants off my previous chime recordings, which I took with Big Mavica, held right up to the door speaker on Breda 2007.
Quote: Meanwhile, I still say Metro needs to shoot at other stations besides Huntington, especially since Huntington has a very non-standard station design...
Categories: WMATA