Too Serious for Haiku

[fauxklore]

Two metro trains collided tonight at rush hour on the Red Line near Takoma. At least four people were killed and over 70 injured.

What I find the most disturbing aspect of this is that the metro service disruption report says, "Disruption at Fort Totten. Trains are turning back at Rhode Island Ave & Silver Spring due to a train experiencing mechanical difficulties outside of Ft. Totten. Shuttle service has been established."

One train rear ending another, causing significant casualties, should not be described with the same term that they use for things like door malfunctions.

I am also irritated that the news report I saw, which mentioned that one of the people killed was the driver of the rear train, felt the need to report that the driver was female.

Comments

[ron_newman]

Up here in Boston, the MBTA had a somewhat less serious Green Line rear-end collision last month, caused by a driver who was texting instead of paying attention to signals. Is there any indication that this was a factor in DC?

[fauxklore]

They don't seem to know much yet.

But since the driver of the trailing train (who was killed in the crash) announced that they would be holding and the train then moved forward to hit the other train, it sounds more like there might have been an actual brake failure. I've also heard that the trailing train was one of the oldest in the system. (I'm not sure how they can measure that, since I thought they reconfigured combinations of cars fairly frequently.)

I suppose it was a good thing that the trains were inbound ones, so less crowded than had they been outbound ones. Though it just occurred to me that one of my colleague might have been out in Silver Spring for a meeting today. (She wasn't in the office, and she often has meeting out that way. But she could also have just stayed on her farm, where she spends most weekends.)

[ron_newman]

I have a friend who lives in Takoma Park and I want to get some assurance that she's OK and didn't ride the Red Line today. Unfortunately I don't know her home phone, only her office....

Edit: She just posted on facebook that she's fine and wasn't on the Metro today. Whew.