Tuesday Morning Update on Metro Tragedy

We wake this morning to the sad news that the death toll from the collision yesterday has been increased to 9 after three bodies were retrieved from the wreckage over the night. The reported total injured count is at 76.


The scariest part of all of this is that this was not supposed to be possible. Computers automatically control the breaking of trains if they get too close to another train. And on top of that, the conductor has the ability to apply manual emergency breaks. Of course there will be a very serious investigation into both the conductor's actions as well as that of the automated system, but it's going to be pretty hard to determine exactly what happened - especially in the driver's compartment.

We won't go into analysis now, there are a lot of agencies getting paid to do that right now. Let's just cover what we know and what you should know:

MARC Brunswick Line is close completely today.

Red line is closed in the affected area (Rhode Island to Silver Spring)

The entire Metro system has been put on manual mode and reduced speed today

Strongly consider taking the bus. If you can work from home, please do it.

Have a good attitude!


Mayor Adrian Fenty is speaking now at a press conference, we will be back with updated details if available. Let's all be thankful if we were not directly affected by this tragedy yesterday and keep those who were in our thoughts. And let's try to have a good attitude to getting around today (and probably tomorrow). Expect massive delays and try to take it in stride. Hang in there Metro'ers!


Update 8:20AM: Mayor Fenty did report 7 confirmed dead from the accident, which is very much conflicting wide spread earlier reports of 9 fatalities. So the official report will be 7 right now. But I don't want to get too caught up in this - it's a terrible tragedy either way.

NTSB also had some interesting remarks about the crash worthiness of the series 1000 cars, which are the older series cars and the ones that made up the train which caused the collision. These cars also do not have "black box" recorders and will be able to provide very little info - despite NTSB recommending in the past that this situation be rectified. Reserving judgement on that until after the investigation is complete. I strongly recommend you read what WeLoveDC has to say about the 2006 NTSB WMATA safety report. Look at "Update 2" on their post here.