You’ve seen my hundreds of WMATA photos on my Transit Center site before. This is one photo that had me somewhat speechless for a bit when I saw it:
Photo from The Washington Post
What you’re seeing there is an accident that happened on Wednesday, November 3, just before 1 PM at Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan station. An out-of-service train lost its brakes, and rolled backwards into a train in service. I think that the fact that no one was killed and few were injured stemmed from the fact that the train operator quickly made an announcement for everyone to get off the train as quickly as possible, and to run if need be.
The out-of-service train actually ran up onto the other train, with the last car coming to rest on top of the in-service train. In the photo, the top car is a Rohr. The bottom car is a Breda 4000-series. I have a feeling that the Rohr car has probably made its last run ever, since it appears that the entire cab is gone. Seriously, look – the rail car is literally gone beyond the first set of doors. I can’t tell what kind of damage happened to the Breda due to the fact that a rather large Rohr train is sitting on top of it.
As the Rohr car looks pretty much totaled, I wonder what will happen to its mate. I also wonder if the Breda car is totaled or not. I wonder what Metro does with these cars’ mates. When the Shady Grove accident happened in 1996, the involved cars’ mates were matched together and renumbered. Of course, that was more optimal conditions. The cars were both of the same series (Breda 3000), and an odd numbered car hit an even numbered car. Thus the remaining cars were one odd numbered car and one even numbered car. And so the cars were matchable.
I am interested to find out all the specifics, as the National Transportation Safety Board will probably release a 100-some page report with the full story, the events leading up to it, policies in place that contributed to it, and lessons learned. This is what they did with the 1996 Shady Grove accident. I found a PDF of that report online, and I have read the whole bloody thing. Very interesting report for me, as someone with a degree in Public Administration.
Meanwhile, I am still going to Washington DC as planned.