Is our Metro system cursed?

Many depend on metro system to get to work especially to get to Washington D.C. With the parking rate increase in D.C. ($2 for an hour to park including Saturdays) and the recent metro and bus fare increase by 10 cents (at least it is only a temporary rate increase till June 2010) to make up the $40 million deficit for the current year, metro riders are hesitant to use the metro. Is that the only reason? Early this weeks’ accident on the metro red line in Rockville killed two of the metro workers who were fixing the lines with control equipments. They were struck by the high rail truck while working on the lines past midnight.


Since this past June of 2009, Metro has been facing a downfall starting with the deadly accident of two trains colliding, killing 9 people including the train operator and hurting 80 people, followed by a train striking and killing a person on the red line in the same month. There have been some accidents or the other in every single month up until now. While everyone should understand that if a person voluntarily stands on the track or jumps in front of the train, (to commit suicide) than it is not the metro’s fault, it also becomes important that metro accidents of killing workers and riders brings down the confidence of people wanting to ride on the metro. To where metro is now in terms of rating, it had taken a decade for the same metro to build up its ratings in the years past.


The chances of getting yourself killed are much higher when one rides on the metro. People are scared to take the metro anymore. In addition to this, metro is not making any improvements in terms of making its system safer to travel. When the tracks are not safer, old models of cars still carrying passengers, one does not want to give up their lives for takes. The general manager of metro, Catoe has resigned for these precise reasons. He does not want to be killed on the tracks while he is doing a walk-through on the work that is being done.


To compound to the issue, metro is increasing fares, instead of increasing the safety of the metro system. On one hand, there is the deficit that metro needs to cover and on the other you need to get more metro riders so that metro can get more revenue. But that is not going to happen until people feel that it is safe to ride the metros. If metro wants more riders, increase the safety of the trains and then increase the fares if need be. You cannot take away the carrots (train safety) in front of the donkey (passengers - pun intended) and except it to walk towards you (metro revenue increase) also.

Playing Dodge Ball

How many times does it happen that when you are watching the news on the television or reading up a newspaper to catch up on that day’s news that you come across something that jolts you? I was watching today’s news about a driver (a women) who was driving in Georgia Avenue in Montgomery County, Maryland, when suddenly out of nowhere a manhole cover shot into the air, striking the driver (obviously after breaking the windshield of her SUV), hurting her critically. She was rushed to the Baltimore emergency center for treatment and face job. It was told that the manhole explosion was due to a gas leak in that area.


Firefighter and Washington Gas officials and crew members arrived at the scene to investigate the incident. The fire fighters told the reporters that they had evacuated the residents until the problem of gas leak could be fixed but some residents said that nobody came to evacuate nor did they know about any evacuation procedures. Why is this confusion that the residents and firefighters have different versions? Possibly, the firefighters came knocking and nobody was there in the house at that time but later the residents drove back or walked home. But the authorities had blocked the road of any traffic, so the residents could not drive home on that road. When they were blocked, that would rise questions among the residents to find out more about the incident and hence the evacuation. Instead of the reporters giving haphazard news to the public, it would be better if they give a complete analysis of the situation. Sometimes I feel that the reporters are just playing the role of ‘Narad muni’ to get a story.


So, coming back to our lady who was driving the SUV... Poor lady… she must be driving back from work and this had to happen on Monday evening. She would have been a little happier that the manic Monday was over when the flying manhole smacked her on the face. Driving has become so difficult these days, that one should expect the unexpected while driving. With the way we see pot holes all over the roads that we drive on, one must be good at playing Dodge Ball in driving to avoid them. Just like ‘Monk’, we should be able to zig-zag when we see flies (those who have watched ‘Monk’ will know what I am talking about) That reminds me, we being in the snow season still, I have seen cars driving with an inch or two of snow slabs on top of their cars after snow days. When I drive, I try to avoid those cars. If not, a slab of snow is bound to hit your windshield any time. Those drivers don’t have the time to brush of that snow off of their cars’ top.


To add a little pun to lighten up the situation – I heard an ad over the radio that Taco Bell is selling bean burritos for $0.38 today. Is that the reason for this manhole explosion? Maybe!

When the fail-safe fails…

The latest news that echoes in all the channels of television and radio is about the metro train accident that happened on Monday evening. In the early hours of rush hour commute on the Metro red line, an inbound train with six cars rammed into another inbound train that was stopped in the same lane, leading to nine deaths including the train operator. Both these trains were heading towards Shady Grove. This accident is one of the deadliest accidents in the metro history and the mangling wreckage happened between the Fort Totten and Takoma Metrorail stations. Seventy six passengers are sent to the hospital for treatment. No body yet knows how this accident occurred or what the cause of the accident was. The standing train had 5000 and 3000 series cars with data recorders in them, whereas the striking train is old modeled with 1000 series cars with no data recorders. Investigators are going to use the data from the data recorders to recreate the accident scene in theory to figure out the cause of the accident. But since the striking train has no data, it has become difficult to simulate the scenes.


Investigators are also looking into work hour schedule of the operator of the striking train, her training records and work records to figure out if her train riding skills are at fault or if she was fatigued on duty. It was told that there were announcements on the train that a train was stopped ahead and the striking train halted and then started to roll on again. Also, the emergency ‘mushroom’ brake button was pushed, indicating that the striking train has used the emergency brakes. Apparently, the striking train’s safeguards did not kick in. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?(It is a latin phrase - Who will guard the guards). The main purpose of the safeguard on a train is to stop the train in case of emergencies and if that fails, then what is the safety net?


Though this is an appalling incident, many on the train would see this as grounds for lawsuits. It is in deed metros fault, since the striking train was due for an inspection and also it was required to upgrade the cars of the train to a better model that could track data to make the train safe for commute. Many in the D.C. metropolitan areas depend on metro to commute to their work. If the metro is not safe, then many would avoid taking the metro which would not be favorable to metro in terms of generating revenue. While I do understand that metro is not making much revenue running their trains, they need to inspect their trains and make it safe if they want to market to people to use metro more, to carpool more to avoid pollution and fuel consumption.


In India, most of the population depends on public transportations like buses and electric trains to commute within and in and around the cities. From schools to colleges; from offices to site seeing places, public transportation is favored. While this is true in European and Asian countries, it is not that much in use in the U.S. During the times when the authorities advertise to use the public transportation more, .there is some incident like this that would through a wrench in. Even with the bus systems, there are not that many buses on the route or that many routes are not covered for the people to use the bus systems. If public transportation is not made easy for the public to use, then why would anyone get into the hassle of using them in the first place?

A puzzle to solve

You really must not be into following the news or what is going on around you or may be a frog in your own little pond, if by now you do not know about the plane crash of Air France, Flight 447. This crash happened on this past Sunday, when the plane was on its way to Paris, France from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil carrying 228 people. The jet flew through towering thunderstorms and apparently disintegrated in the air or when it slammed into the Atlantic Ocean. There was no sign of alarm or distress signals from the plane that it was in a crisis and it just disappeared from the radar.

Search crew were sent in via Brazilian ships to the presumed location of crash to search for debris of the plane and to find the black box to recreate the scenario of what might have happened that caused the crash. Since it has been days now, it has been assumed that there are no survivors from the crash and there is very little to no hope of finding any. This crash is the world’s worst commercial crash since 2001. Investigators are in pursuit of the black box of the plane to get vital information on the last few minutes before the crash to find out exactly what happened that caused the plane to crash. The black box records the voice of the pilots and records data of the flight.

It has been said that this plane of four years, had been built in a way that just lightning could not have brought it down and that there must have a series of failures that lead to the planes system shutting down, disintegrating in the sky. When the plane falls apart in the sky, there is no way that escape slides can be out for the survivors if any, to slide out. Due to bad weather and cloudy conditions, US satellites are not able to gather information about the debris that might be floating on the waters where the crash occurred and the search/Navy ships have 2,300 square miles to cover, to collect any wreckage they can spot.

Time is of the essence in this case, since the flotsam will be washed away from the scene or sink, and the black box that emits signal of its presence will die after a 30-day period after which it might be difficult to find or use. Have you ever misplaced your cell phone leaving it on silent or vibrate mode? I have done it many times (I never learn, do I?) and the search for the phone then becomes a pain. You can call your cell many times but you would never know where it is unless your ears are tuned to the vibration of the phone or your eyes can see the light from the flashing phone hiding beneath the car seat cushion. If you do not find the phone on time, the battery dies out on you and you are left purely with luck to find the phone. I hope this will not be the case with the crew trying to find the black box of Flight 447 to solve the mystery of its crash.

Everything flying

Man is a curious animal and in that he wants to conquer the land that he lives on. Conquering is not just in terms of ruling but understanding the mysteries of nature. Look for instance, he saw the fish in the ocean and he prepped himself to triumph over the waters and sail away to the far, far land. He saw the birds fly in the sky and he invented airplanes more than a century ago. (Pardon me, aviation buffs, for not providing the exact dates. I will leave the honors to you). He has pretty much left no stone unturned to master the natures’ workings. But as Spiderman was told, "With great power comes great responsibility…”

We certainly have made a breakthrough in aviation. Different types of planes with immense technology to get anyone across the world in the minimum amount of time possible. With every step forward, we also see that many accidents take place in the flights. A couple of months back, two incidents in flight accidents grabbed our attention. One good and one bad… The good kind of accident (are accidents ever good? Yes, if you walk out of it scratch less!) was when the pilot had the presence of mind to land the US Airways plane with 155 people on board into the Hudson River in New York, when a bird struck the engine during takeoff from New York's LaGuardia Airport. This incident happened on January 15th of this year, when everybody on board that plane was saved by the quick-thinking of the pilot of that plane.

Now the bad kind of accident is the one when the repercussions are not good. This can be loss of lives, damaged goods or reputations, or whatsoever. On February 12th, 2009, exactly 3 months from today, Continental connection flight 3407 crashed into a house in Buffalo, killing 50 people, 49 on board and one person living in that house on which the plane crashed. The plane was flown on a wintery day and ice was formed on the windshield and wings and it began to stall. The pilot Captain Renslow was caught in shock of the stall and he jerked the plane upward and caused it to spin out of control. If he had lowered the nose of the aircraft, increased power and leveled the turboprop’s wings, the plane would have stabilized. As a result of the pilots’ actions, the plane crashed, taking the lives of 50 people.

Hind sight is always 20/20. We can take any situation after the fact and analyze it in slow motion and can come up with alternate results or theory of that action. The NTSB is doing investigations on this accident and has mentioned that the pilot didn’t have enough experience to fly this kind of commuter plane nor did he have any training for stall-recovery. Authorities are putting in hours to investigate this mess-up. If the board had put in these same hours before the fact in selecting a well-trained pilot, maybe they could have avoided this incident perhaps?

I am not pointing fingers at anyone nor am I concluding that the pilot made a mistake. I am sure he did his best in that situation, because it was just not others lives but his own was in danger. He just was caught with the problem like the deer-in-the-headlights because he was not paying attention to the situation but instead of chatting with his co-pilot. This just added to the inability to take proper actions along with his lack of training and experience on the situation at hand. If the flight management team took the time to select a proper pilot for the flight and if the pilot had the quick-thinking needed to take action in situations like these, maybe the 50 people who lost their lives would be breaking bread with their families tonight.