Metro is granting this guy’s wish today.
Alack that I don't commute on the Blue Line. Come to the Red Line @wmata's 7000 series metro train. pic.twitter.com/qelg42DUPS
— Wesley Cocozello (@VeryRevOCoco) May 20, 2015
If all is going well, a shiny new Metro train has already made its journey through the Red Line a time or two today. WMATA chose this line for the debut of its second eight-car train made up of cars from the 7000 series. It was to depart the Shady Grove station for the first time at 7:01 this morning.
Interior of a 7000-series Metro car. (photo by Flickr user Ben Schumin, published under Creative Commons license)
The Post also suggests that this train is one way Metro’s trying to “make nice” with passengers who’ve put up with with a lot of breakdowns lately on Metro’s oldest and troubled line.
What do you think? Were you one of 7000-series’ first riders? Are you excited to ride?
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GreenEyeshades says
At 9:45 this morning, station attendant at Van Ness radioed a contact and asked when the 8-car train of 7000-series railcars would be coming by Van Ness. Contact told him the 7000-series train runs only during rush hours. Attendant told me the 7000-series train was already “asleep” since rush hour was over.
NatsGal says
Well, I see that they considered the needs of the vertically challenged when designing this car – NOT! I don’t see any poles in the middle of the aisle for short riders to hang on to during crowded rush hour commutes. Actually, I don’t see anything on ceiling level for the tall riders, either. Just how are we supposed to stay upright in these cars… with that slick floor, I can imagine a lot of “slip sliding away” especially going around curves. What idiot designed this thing – sure looks like they never actually rode on Metro and saw the need for people to have a place to hold during the ride. Another massive Metro failure. Quelle Suprise….not.
Michele says
Indeed: no space for wheel chairs, strollers or people with large pieces of luggage. Indicative of the whole sorry history of Metro! The engineers, the architects, the WDC bureaucrats, car designers, etc.
I use the red line daily. Not only am I beyond frustrated with this joke of a subway system, its rude and unhelpful staff, but so too the users of Metro who day in and day out TOLERATE this system! Talk about civic citizens being so passive it reaches the level of pathology. Instead, these folks ‘hide’ behind their portable technology disassociating from the reality of this system being a billion dollar death trap, an embarrassment at a many levels, and (here is the bunch line, my dear reader), reflective of the whole damn society (I refer you to Chris Hedges presentation: The Culture of Celebrity, which you can view on youtube). It is a surreal experience: folks not trying to make room for others desperate to get on, healthy younger people not offering a priority seating to an elderly woman and when kindly prompted to offer a seat, shrugged their shoulders and stayed put, texting away, to utter daily tolerance of this horrible, horrible system. I direct any one who truly cares, who has an ounce of civic blood, to raise holy hell. Civil disobedience is in order! The Budapest system, dating back to the late 1800s works. The Paris and London system, almost as old, work. The Prague system works, and so too Stalin’s Moscow system works (on this, Saturday I sat next to a young Russian Economics student. Engaging in conversation while we waited and waited, first for a train to arrive and then once arrived, waited for it to move, she informed me how at all hours you wait just a few minutes for her beautiful Moscow subway train to show up, that she uses it all the time when back at home studying, and there were never problems)! But not this youngster, our metro:
The platform floor plan is utter chaos with people coming and going, crashing into each other instead of having an exit route and an entrance route, too much time between trains, dark escalators, dark platforms, leaks, dangerous wiring, flooding, escalators exposed to the elements, broken elevators, platform tiles cracking and bulging, whiplash breaking/broken automatic breaking system, an utterly useless ‘intercom’ system, too often rude staff, angry engineers (they tell me they are fed up with the bureaucracy and the broken system), one track system (what the he–!), and on and on.
I mean really, was one sane individual involved in this whole damn history of this system, screaming out: THIS WILL NOT WORK AND HERE ARE THE ZILLION REASONS WHY….
After decades overseas, I must say, each return to this country yells out: The collective is in psychological denial as to how little works in this country, and this damn system is pure symbolism of a much, much larger problem!
Let’s get the Japanese, the French, the Chinese, the Germans, or Italians…..to assess, recommend and implement how to truly create a world class system, as they have done in there countries! All these governments who manage to keep their city subways working.
METRO: A national disgrace…….”and the frightened, beaten down people simply didn’t ‘see’. Even the well-fed and clothed. They were, like their economically poorer and sisters and brothers, not able to ‘see’. And first it was this that they didn’t ‘see’. And then it was that that they didn’t ‘see’. Soon, their not seeing was all there was to see.”