Drivin' That Train

“How fast is this train going?” I asked my daughter as the skin on my face grew taut from the train’s acceleration.

“One hundred,” she said casually, as if oblivious to the miniature face-lift the subway had provided me.

One of my hundred goals for this weekend was to make my daughter an independent rider of the DC Metro since she may matriculate at a school in our nation’s capital next fall. After reading an article in the Washington Post entitled "Sandwiching Older Metro Cars Was a PR Move," I may not be so keen about the notion of anyone I know riding this system that is an accident that has already happened.

I was all set to write a happy little blog about my greatest lifetime memories of visiting DC when the newspaper article set me back into citizen Cassandra mode.

Let’s file this complaint under public relations trump risk management: The Metro system paid consultants sums of $4000 a day and $275 an hour to smooth over public concern about the safety of the system after a crash this summer killed nine people.

Consequently the old (series 1000) cars that are deemed unsafe were sandwiched between newer shock absorbing cars. End of solution. Cha-ching! Tax dollars save the day. Now hold on a minute. The action was not the result of an engineering analysis according to today’s newspaper. Can anyone say damage control?

This past week when I was chaperoning a field trip to the Haw River, the teacher made a public service announcement before we boarded the bus about her husband being attacked by a copperhead at the river last week. Although the teacher intended to keep her class safe, one of the 9-year-olds became so distraught by the warning that I took her aside and tried to comfort her.

“There is risk in all that we do,” I said to the worried student, “but as long as we are cautious and aware of our surroundings, we’ll be fine.”

Sometime after the Metro wreck this summer, a Facebook friend commented, “That’s why I don’t ride the front or the back car.”

Yesterday I rode the middle cars, unaware that they are likely the 30-year-old series 1000 cars.

Should Casey Jones and her daughter just stay off that train? Let’s face it: The drivers are all a-Twitter, the old cars are not safe and there are terrorist threats in the news. One reason not to buy a fare card is likely enough.

Trouble ahead.
Trouble behind.
And you know that notion just crossed my mind.

-R. Hunter, "Casey Jones"