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 closure’s 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 County’s 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.
There was a major fire on Monday morning that disrupted the system from around 6am until 5pm. The official word is that this is an emergency inspection of electric jumper cables that link to 3rd electrified rail. From an investigation of a similar fire last summer, which resulted in 1 death and dozens hospitalized from smoke, these jumper cables were apparently the problem. Supposedly they were to have been replaced during the last few months.
Once again language invokes confusion. Is the second following 11:59:59pm / 23:59:59 Tuesday, Wednesday or still Tuesday for another 60 seconds? Obviously the story considers that day to be Wednesday while I (personally) consider “Midnight” to be the END of the prior day as in ‘a midnight deadline’ (i.e. an end of a period simile.)
The fault lies not in the author but in ambiguity yet precision in English usage. Astronomically, Noon and Midnight are neither Ante Meridian or Post Meridian. Perhaps scientifically correct but I tend not to use because they lack that precision for actual placement as witnessed by this story.
Such are the meanderings of my mind!
I think you are right.
Sunday would be the most likely day to shut down to have a system wide shutdown.
Officials may not want to publicize what they know, as it would certainly work in Trump’s favor during voting today.
Here’s the story from a local radio station:
http://wtop.com/sprawl-crawl/2016/03/sources-metrorail-to-shut-down-entirely-wednesday/slide/1/
This is going to be a nightmare for commuters.
Trump’s fault.
Wouldn’t Sunday night be a better time?
Yes. But the Metro system has many problems —safety, security, financial. No telling what the hell is really going on. It’s way past time that our tax dollars are allowed to be mismanaged by democrats in DC.
As DT would say: You’re Fired!
Metro has had a LOT of problems lately, and people are disgusted with it. Another fire this week disrupted everything once again. I think the new head of Metro is exercising extreme caution regarding the problems that this most recent incident exposed.
-JT
Thanks for that.
“Must have had a serious threat to do this without much notice.”
This is a big city jobs program masquerading as a transit system. More than likely nobody bothered to inspect the cables. With no documentation on routine maintenance, and after a hard failure like they experienced, their new leadership made a prudent decision.
This is all about government incompetence. What do all the Metro employees do? We know they don’t inspect critical cables. One wonders what else they don’t bother to do.
thanks for that.
“This is going to be a nightmare for commuters.”
Best move all around is to just declare a “snow day” and all business to be shut down and do nothing (SOP for the gov’t on any day).
I’m sure there are many places like that.
None will impact D.C. more also, so there must have been a very good reason.
It’s a shame we open our nation up to this, but harboring foreign terrorists, and an element on our university campuses that supports this type of thing.
We are reaping the rewards for that.
It’s sad, because for decades the system was excellent. I used it during the 1980s-90s many times per week, and I think that in 13 years I experienced one problem.
It’s not like that anymore.
-JT
Ummm. Why wouldn’t they just wait until the weekend when there is less of a disruption?
A good time for the false flaggers to set their staged event.
Ooh a terrorist attack in the capitol would surely be an excuse for martial law. You remember martial law? The hungy hippo SJL even mentioned it as one of their tools a few years back.
Thanks for the mention. Gives me more perspective on this.
Not living in the region, I was in the dark on it.
Okay, that makes sense. Thanks for the mention.
Lazy overpaid and pampered employees represented by a union makes it easy to defer things like “routine maintenance” and use money for more benefits, and then ask for more money when problems inevitably emerge.
It’s the same story for governments of all stripes everywhere.
You could call it extortion, and you’d probably be more accurate.
For sure
Some folks in the region are mentioning a recent fire and the announcement last year that there were some serious problems.
There’s a good chance this is related to those two things.
We could still be on the right track, but I’ll let my thoughts take a back seat to the more known problem for now.
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