Facing the Heat
Posted by Fred Jandt
Mass Transit magazine editor
This week Washington Metro officials had to face the heat as the National Transportation Safety Board held a three-day public hearing discussing last year’s fatal rail accident involving two Metro trains. Unfortunately for Metro, it looks like the heat may have just uncovered the tip of the iceberg.
Last year’s tragedy seems to be the impetus for change at Washington Metro, but unfortunately it may not be enough to satisfy local leaders. Already, two top officers at the agency have been removed and its general manager, John Catoe, has announced his resignation effective this April. However, a complete restructuring of Metro’s management may not be enough. Four U.S. senators have called for “substantial†reforms at the agency, which could even mean a federal takeover. Another group of senators have passed legislation to allow the feds to takeover safety regulation of the nation’s subways and light rail lines.
It sure didn’t help that Alstom testified that Metro’s “use of third-party components . . . presents, not only a customer quality issue, but also constitutes a serious and increasing risk to overall signaling system safety.â€
Ouch.
Now everyone working in an agency where the maintenance guys have to use any brand of part they can get their hands on to keep their fleet running raise their hands. How about everyone in an agency where the maintenance guys have to manufacture their own parts because the ones they need aren’t made anymore?
This situation has two parts. The first part is Washington Metro itself. Being in the heart of the nation’s capital has its benefits and its costs. The biggest cost is that if you screw up everyone knows about it. There is a scrutiny at this agency that even the nation’s other largest agencies don’t have.
So the management deck gets swept cleaned (again) and the agency continues on. Hopefully, somebody with some sense won’t put the feds in charge — there’s too much red tape at agencies already.
The other part is this idea of mixing and matching parts increasing the risk of an accident. I’m sorry, but at the very least that’s just covering your behind in front of the government, and at the most that’s an indictment of our industry. Transit agencies are woefully underfunded for the amount of service they provide. Naysayers be damned, it’s true. And to say that these agencies are all possibly creating a “serious and increasing risk†to system safety is ridiculous.
That’s like buying a new printer and charging $100 a cartridge for ink, but saying the $10 generic cartridge will blow it up in six months. Why would I buy that printer to begin with?
Thanks for reading the MT Position, updated every Friday. For those interested in instant updates, you can now get your latest Mass Transit fix via Twitter.
Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com
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February 26th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
I have some comments regarding your editorial “Facing the Heat”.
Any train control supplier will want proprietory protection for their safety critical system. This only makes sense from a liability standpoint. WMATA should have had a maintenance contract with Alstom to maintain all safty critcial components of the ATP. If this was not possible, then WMATA engineering and quality staff should have been overseeing the implementation of any deviations in part suppliers. Not having WMATA technicians making parts in the basement as your article suggests. If unauthorized parts were being installed, it is a result of WMATA management failing to do their duty.
WMATA is only underfunded because their operating costs are so high. No doubt salaries are by far the largest component of the operating budget. Why is it in the age of driverless train control is there no driverless mass transit system in the USA? Don’t say it is safety since driverless people movers operate in most major US airports and have been for decades. I suggest that it is the operators union opposing this change for the obvious reason of protecting members jobs. This too is a function of transit management that will have to be addressed to provide economic survival of major transit agencies.
As usual, the root cause of this fatal accident is not a failure of technology but people. Can WMATA learn from this failure and make a paradigm shift from the status quo to leading edge? I would like to think so, but employees don’t like change and management doesn’t like to make unpopular change. If WMATA doesn’t want fatal accidents in the future they will have to make the tough people changes and not look solely to technology for solutions.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:40 am
Government cannot expect transportation to be provided withot proper funding, without a serious and increasing risk.
March 5th, 2010 at 1:19 am
An eye opener for some.
Thanks, Fred for having your finger on the pulse.
The thing with railcar manufactire — especailly for metro transit systems, is that each specific order is CUSTOM MADE! What works on WAMATA doesn’t necessarily work on Miami-Dade, or CTA, or NYCTA, or BART. Each order for railcars is speced out differently…sometimes, even to the point that one series of rolling stock doesn’t trainline (or mate) with another. Many of the nations systems are running with equipment that’s 40 years old, or even older! When you think of it, that’s a LOT of OEMs that are long out of business, or no longer manufacturing parts – let alone stocking them. It’s amazing when you take a random look at transit systems all over North America, how they are “making do” with what little they have in the stockrooms…AND, how creative they have become at remanufactuing components to keep not only elderly, but relatively newer units in service.
If government decides to take over regulating safety and operation of the nation’s metro transit systems, they are biting off WAY more than they can chew. It’s just time for more funding. I hope we see it soon.