So Metro throws money down a rathole once again…
October 28, 2008, 8:23 PM
According to an article in today’s issue of The Washington Post, Metro has announced that they will be doing random bag searches in response to security concerns regarding the upcoming election and presidential inauguration.
Based on what I’ve read about it, including the Post article and WMATA’s press release, what they’re going to do is set up shop in a station mezzanine or bus stop, and count off a certain number of people such as 15 (I selected this number and will use it throughout this entry), and then stop the person who happens to be that unlucky fifteenth person to search their bags. It’s kind of like an adult version of duck duck goose, except the one who is “it” has a gun. The idea is that these random searches are being conducted to search for explosives, and will take 15 seconds to complete – about as long as a train station stop lasts.
So let’s poke a few holes in this idea, shall we?
First of all, searching every fifteenth rider or whatever does NOT provide any real security. You see, for every one you inspect, you’ve let another fourteen go by. Thus you’re only inspecting roughly 7% of riders. And so when you’re letting 93% of your riders go through uninspected, all you’re doing is wasting the time of the other 7% who you are stopping.
Additionally, the 15 seconds to conduct the inspection is about as long as a train takes to make a station stop. Therefore, being pulled over for the inspection could make the difference between making your train or missing it. During the evenings when train headways start to run around 15 minutes, that makes a significant difference between making it home at a reasonable hour or not. Just thinking about my commute, if I leave outside of rush hour, I have to take the Y bus home. I’ve had to wait more than 30 minutes for Y buses at Glenmont at times, due to the poor service that Metro provides on that route. Thus for a commute that normally takes an hour, it can get stretched out another 45 minutes just having to stand around waiting for the train or bus because you missed your intended train due to their “security” inspections.
Continue reading…Categories: DC area local news, Security, WMATA
I’ve seen buses in odd conditions before, but this is ridiculous!
October 17, 2008, 10:50 PM
I wonder what happened with Ride-On’s bus #5718. It’s a 1999 Orion V, and it sported a few unusual features for my commute this morning. For one thing, it sported no stop annunciator – the device that announces the stops. “Georgia Avenue and Glenallan Avenue. Georgia Avenue and Epping Road.” And “Stop requested!” Ride-On put stop annunciators on just about all of their buses last November and December. How did this one get missed? Of course, not that I mind not having to hear that voice sometimes. It’s too loud on Ride-On buses. Then this bus also had no advertising along the ceiling, unlike most Ride-On buses.
And to top it all off, what is wrong with this picture?
My costume is starting to take form…
October 17, 2008, 12:48 AM
One has to wonder what’s going on with this…
October 15, 2008, 7:15 PM
Categories: WMATA
Not bad for an hour’s work…
October 15, 2008, 12:09 AM
Take a look:
(Apologies for the poor image quality – I hiked the contrast way up to make the lines easier to see)
As you can see, the drawing is basically finished. It looks like a Metro train all right, and it appears that the decision has been made: I’m going to be going as a Breda of some kind. Right now, the windows are square like the 2000 and 3000 series, but that wouldn’t stop me from rounding off those windows and being a 4000-series. Or I could round off one side and not the other and be 4018-4019. After the Woodley Park-Zoo accident, 4018 got squared-off windows during the repairs, while 4019 kept its original rounded windows.
So the drawing phase didn’t take very long at all. Now I get to start painting, turning this thing the proper shade of brown and aluminum to make it properly Metro.
Nylon straps? Ummmmmm…
July 29, 2008, 8:03 AM
Categories: WMATA
Metro on speed?
July 20, 2008, 11:53 AM
This is perhaps the weirdest thing I’ve heard come out of Metro’s door speakers ever:
Categories: WMATA
A prostitution ring in Dupont Circle station?
July 11, 2008, 12:13 AM
That just blows my mind. Two Metro employees are accused of running a prostitution ring out of the Dupont Circle Metro station. According to the July 10, 2008 Examiner article called “Metro manager accused of prostitution agrees to life skills, education program”, station manager Sharon Waters, dubbed the “Metro Madam”, and custodian Pam Goins were accused of “arranging sexual trysts for money”, even going so far as to use the station’s PA system to “facilitate an arrangement”.
You may recall that Dupont Circle is my work station. I go through Dupont Circle station twice a day every day, and have seen both female station managers and female custodians at the station. So now I wonder if it was anyone I know, since I occasionally talk to personnel in the station, especially if I worked late and I know there won’t be a Glenmont train for a number of minutes.
Of course, the PA system part really gets me. Have you ever heard Metro station PA announcements? They’re not exactly the gold standard for clarity. In fact, most of them are downright unintelligible, particularly the ones piped in from Central Control. The announcements that originate from the station manager’s kiosk are a bit better than the ones that come from Central, but still not exactly crystal clear, especially since the primary construction material in most stations is concrete. Too many announcements sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher, i.e. completely unintelligible. Maybe those hooker announcements sounded a little better, but who knows.
Categories: Amusing, DC area local news, WMATA
So what’s the story here?
July 2, 2008, 11:45 PM
Looks like there’s more than just Breda 3290 and 3291 as a mismatched set in Metro’s 3000 series of rail cars. Look at this:
Categories: WMATA
Let’s all say, “Go, team, go!”
June 25, 2008, 9:27 PM
I think that would be appropriate. Food & Water Watch, where I work, has a team for a summer volleyball tournament on the Mall. And on my way home, I ran into them on the Metro heading towards their first game. So here’s everyone on Breda 4058 this evening…
If the name of the development consists of the name of the station that the development is next to, and then they show a photo of the wrong station in their advertisement, what does that say about them?
June 25, 2008, 7:36 PM
Anyone who’s been through Fort Totten station on Metro’s Red Line has probably seen Fort Totten Station, the development of cheaply-built (they’re built of wood, not concrete) alleged luxury apartments contributing to the gentrification of DC. I go by them twice a day every day on my way to and from the office.
And the company that operates the development also runs advertisements in the Express. And they made a big boo-boo in their ad here. Let me show you what I’m talking about from today’s Express:
Photo: June 25, 2008 edition of Express, page 8
Categories: Advertising, WMATA
When trains derail…
June 9, 2008, 10:11 PM
Hopefully, the events that transpired on Metro today are not an indicator as to what there is in store for this summer. Especially since I ride the Red Line, which seems to have more than its fair share of delays sometimes. But this time, the accident was on the Orange Line. So all of us on the Red Line can feel smug for a brief moment because it happened on someone else’s line for a change.
What happened was that a Vienna-bound Orange Line train derailed about 1,000 feet outside Court House station. Because of where the interlockings are located, this screwed up Orange Line service from Clarendon to Foggy Bottom-GWU, since trains had to be single-tracked around the incident. Blue Line service was mostly unaffected, because the derailment occurred on the K Route, which is an Orange-only route from Vienna to Rosslyn. I say “mostly” because some of the single-tracking spilled over onto the C Route, which runs from Metro Center to Huntington via Arlington Cemetery, which Blue Line trains use.
Thankfully, no one was injured in the derailment. As my father once said, there’s nothing money can’t fix. All they did was bash up some hardware. I was surprised to find out that the train was a 2000-series car – a Breda rehab – rather than what I would have expected, which was a CAF. CAF cars have a plethora of problems, and have been involved in multiple yard derailments, as well as being involved in the Mt. Vernon Square derailment last year. But no, it was a rehab. Go figure. No word on what the car number was, but Metro says that the consist was #905, and it was the third car of six.
What amuses me, however, is the fact that The Washington Post refers to the car involved this way: “The 2000 series car is one of the older model rail cars.” That’s only half true anymore. Yes, the car body dates from 1982, when Metro received its first order of Bredas. However, the 2000s went to Hornell, New York for rehabilitation in 2003-2004, and came back all shiny and new. They completely restructured the car body, put new systems in, and replaced the interior. So the cars are mostly newer than the CAF cars due to the rehab, which entered service in 2001-2004.
So I’ll be interested to see what they figure out about the cause. There’s no interlocking there, so we can rule out a switch problem, so we’ll have to see. When it comes to Metro, as with many other things in life, the simplest explanation is usually the right one. I’ll also be interested to find out the identity of the accident car. I hope it’s not 2008, which I had my photo taken on twice – once prior to rehab, and once after.
Categories: WMATA
What are you talking about? Coffee’s supposed to taste like sludge!
June 5, 2008, 10:50 PM
It’s funny… at work, the coffee drinkers have for the most part gone into two camps. There are the ones who would happily make it so strong that the spoon stands up, and those who like weak coffee.
I’m part of the “sludge” crowd. There is a dedicated group of us who gets to the Bunn-O-Matic in the morning and make strong coffee. Some people describe it as being like castor oil. I prefer the term “sludge”, myself. And if anyone asks why I like the coffee like sludge, I just smile. And not just a regular smile, either. It’s that kind of smile that’s so much so that it works muscles all down your neck and on your chest. The I’ve-had-too-much-caffeine smile. I love it.
Of course, I always cut myself off at noon. No more coffee past noon, which paves the way for a nap on Metro some evenings. Yesterday after work, I really must have been pooped – I fell asleep before Brookland-CUA, and next thing I knew, it was Glenmont. Usually, if I fall asleep on Metro, I briefly wake up around Fort Totten or Takoma, and then also around Forest Glen or Wheaton. Usually if it’s Wheaton, I end up staying awake to Glenmont, because I don’t see any point of nodding off again, being so close.
Categories: Food and drink, Myself, Project Chanology, WMATA, Work
So, yeah, here’s what happened with Transit…
June 5, 2008, 9:42 PM
So as I mentioned in my earlier Journal entry, I had a run-in with Metro Transit Police while on my way in to see Matthew Tilley. So here’s the story.
As you know, I’m a bit of a railfan, and I’m interested in many of the technical aspects of the system. In this case, I was photographing out the back of the train, as I’d done numerous times in the past. I’ve done this on the C, D, E, F, G, J, K, and L routes, and published the results on Transit Center (which will be back, I promise!). For the non-rail buff, those route letters mean I’ve photographed just about everywhere on the system except for the Red Line. So, coming in, I figured, what the heck, I might as well start a railfan trip off right, and get photos of the B Route, which I’d not done before.
So I’m at the bulkhead door of Alstom 6075, and I’m doing fine. I started photographing at the Silver Spring portal (too dark in the tunnels), and I was having a blast, if I do say so myself, even photographing the non-WMATA work trains laying gravel on the adjacent CSX tracks. So at Rhode Island Avenue, two Transit Police officers come on board. “Sir, could you please come with us?” Yes, me. I’m like, okay… Turns out that someone had reported my activity, and they were checking things out. They didn’t know who reported it, but okay. I’m guessing a WMATA employee did, since the officers mentioned that they were told I’d been using a tripod, and the average WMATA rider doesn’t even know that a regulation exists governing tripods. I do. I know that the use of tripods, monopods, etc. is prohibited on Metro. That’s why I left mine at home, despite that I could get some really great shots of the underground stations that way.
And so for those wondering how my birthday went…
June 4, 2008, 2:07 PM
My birthday weekend went quite well, thank you. I spent my actual birthday at home, where I wrote a Wikipedia article about October Rebellion. Yes, that October Rebellion. I had a great time writing that article, though it’s not often that I’ll sit down and write a new article from scratch and go hunting for reliable sources and such.
Then the next day, Mom and Dad came to visit – just for the day. We went to downtown Silver Spring, where we had a birthday lunch at Austin Grill, a restaurant that serves Mexican food. As we were coming in, rain appeared to be imminent, and yet some people still wanted to be seated outside, and stayed outside, even as the rain started coming down. There was a very small overhang that these people ate under, and I presume they stayed dry for the most part.
At the restaurant, Mom committed what would be considered a major sin if you like to stay in the good graces of your companions. She told the server that it was my birthday. Now I admit that she didn’t mean to let that out in front of the waitstaff. It slipped out unintentionally. But you know how it is… if you say “birthday” to a server, next thing you know, you have ALL of them marching in clapping, and singing happy birthday to you. Once we realized Mom’s error, we flagged the server again about the birthday thing, and good news – Austin Grill doesn’t sing. Very good.