Posted on 03/15/2016 2:38:52 PM PDT by OwenKellogg
WASHINGTON Metrorail will shut down entirely for more than a day beginning at midnight Wednesday for safety checks, Metro has announced.
Metrorail will reopen at 5 a.m. Thursday. Metro General Management Paul Wiedefeld says that the 29 hours should be enough time to inspect 600 underground jumper cables that provide power to the energized third rail to run the trains.
There is no word yet of the closures impact on federal offices or its employees many of whom rely on Metro to get to work.
The Office of Personnel Management says it will provide an update later today. Virginia Railway Express will operate on a normal schedule Wednesday and Thursday. Montgomery Countys Ride On will run regular weekday service Wednesday but additional buses will be provided where possible. MARC Train will announce any service changes Tuesday evening.
Thanks for the mention. Several of you have touched on this, and I think you folks have a good point.
Yesterday on Twitter, The Jester said he was ‘monitoring terrorist chatter’.....like something was about to go down. I wonder if related?
Well, for the time being I’m taking this as a good sign that the new director intends to change things. Hopefully he will be able to do so.
-JT
Must be Tea Party threats. CNN is on it.
/s
Maybe, but some folks had some very reasoned comments about some faults with the electrical cables and fires on the metro system.
That may be all this is about.
Government shutdown that the Republicans are not “responsible for” but is it terrorism?
The feds have pretty much done that, declaring a work-at-home or unscheduled leave day. That will make it a lot easier on the rest of us.
-JT
>>>A fire in the Metro killed a lady a while back; it seemed to me during the press conference today that Metro were saying theyve detected something similar to what caused that previous fire<<<
One of Obama’s Sons killed a Guy on the Metro a while back. He beat the Victim to death as I recall while 20 People just sat there and watched it happen.
Maybe they should check the Metro while it’s running instead.
Why not shut down one line at a time overnight or on a weekend—red, yellow, blue, green, orange, whatever and do this type of inspection.
Former Metro commuter (1992-1994).
Bingo. "Safety checks" my Obama.
There’s a lot of crime on the Metro; the son of my co-worker was mugged and severely beaten a couple of years ago.
But that’s a separate issue.
-JT
These problems are not omnipresent.
The DC Metro has an average of 700,000 passenger boardings each week day.
You don’t shut down a system that serves that many people a day with less than 24 hours notice in the middle of a workweek unless the wheels are falling off the railcars or a tunnel is collapsing.
A shutdown of this magnitude that will impact so many people has to be co-ordinated quickly as the resulting traffic will cause a lot of problems tomorrow.
Having grown up near NYC with its huge transit system, I never remember ever hearing of a mid week shutdown for any reason, except for snow.
The worst problems seem to be in the DC stations, so those tracks in the stations and underground should be inspected first. Once you are outside in the open air, those can be inspected anytime.
I wonder who is doing the inspecting. If there is no confidence in the system personnel who allowed this condition to develop in the first place, you have to mobilize expert inspection personnel in the private sector to get a proper job done.Otherwise, this is an exercise in futility.
And it will take more than 29 hours to do it.
Something still does not add up here.
Still seems there is more than meets the eye here.
A middle of the week safety stand down? Something else is going on.
Bush at it again.
And this unhappy family drove all the way across-country just to ride the Metrorail!
And the rest of the country will get along just fine (or better!) without them..............
Cherry blossom season starts this weekend, and the town is going to be loaded with tourists. They’ll be scheduled to run extra trains for the next few weekends to accommodate. If something like the L’Enfant fire happened to a train up of out-of-towers the revenue loss would be hideous.
Entire Metrorail system to shut down Wednesday (Washington DC)
bump
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