This is the fifth time out of eight or so day that the Metro subway system had to close a station and strand passengers because of a subway fire. There is now an (unintentionally) insane policy which requires that is someone reports smoke, the track must shut down until the fire department can come and tell Metro, it was a piece of newspaper, you could have handled it yourselves!!
O.K. the policy was born from good intention. Back on April 20th, there was a huge electrical fire in a subway tunnel, and passangers of a train were trapped in that tunnel of about two hours. Fortunately I wasn’t one of them, but I was stranded in DC for about four hours.
Someone in master control that day sent that car into the tunnel even though someone said the fire was huge.
However, they implemented a new policy. If there’s smoke close the stations and call the authorities. You can’t be too careful.
Well yes you can. Now if mister train driver rides the breaks a little too hard, I can’t get home. If a scrap piece of newspaper lands on the third rail, even though even I can put that one out, the station closes and we must wait for teh Fire Department. And what happens, if while we’re dousing trash cans and cleaning out the breaks, a real fire happens independent of Metro?
I’m just mad that I was caught in 3 of these 5 situations!
Speaking of subway fires, yesterday my honey saw a fire in the garbage at the end of the escalator. The attendant was told about the flames shooting out of the trash can and filled her coffee pot up with water and put it out that way. You would think that she would have used a fire extinguisher. I doubt that one was reported to anyone else.
HUGS!
Sqrl
PS. Luckily I have not been too inconvenienced by this crap. (Knocks on wood supersticiously.)
Sterling North,
I guess that will teach you to take the Red line! :)I’m just glad I live on the Blue Line and I have been spared getting caught in any of those situations. Although after I post this, I’m taking Metro to Dupont Circle to have Thai food with a prospective future ex-boyfriend. Of course, with all those hot peppers, Metro might declare me a fire hazard!
I also take the red line every day. However, today, for the first time in my life, I decided to drive to work. With all this BS going on with Metro lately, it seemed the prudent thing to do. I hope they get this thing worked out soon. :mad:
Well it happened once again. This time it was Eastern Market Station on the Blue Line (I lost the bet, I said Yellow) at 7pm. However I did predict that they would change their policy to something less insane before the end of this week!
Thus concludes “SterlingNorth’s Washington DC Subway Fire of the Day”