POLL CENTER

Poll Center: Safety on the Rails

WHILE YOU ARE FAR more likely statistically to be involved in an auto accident than a life-threatening mishap on Metrorail, episodes like Sunday's derailment on the Green Line — which hurt nearly 20 people, including one person with head injuries — can definitely lead to heightened fears over one's daily commute. Images like those of destroyed Red Line train cars in the Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan station from November 2004 don't help ease fears of a calamity underground. That accident, in which an out-of-service Red Line train rolled backward into a train containing passengers, fortunately did not result in any deaths, thanks to a fast-acting Metro operator who ordered an evacuation seconds before disaster struck.

Photo by Gerald Martineau/The Washington PostFollowing the derailment on Sunday, the National Transportation Safety Board is questioning whether there might be larger safety problems involving Metro's newer, but troubled, 5000 series rail cars built by Spain's CAF Inc. As The Post's Eric M. Weiss reports, Sunday's incident was the fifth involving the 5000 series since Metro put them into service in 2001:

A report on the first four derailments, issued in October 2004, said they took place on side tracks and involved trains with no passengers aboard that were operating at speeds of 5 to 10 mph and making tight turns on tracks that were not lubricated properly.
Another worry for passengers: One of the 60 riders stuck in the last two cars that derailed near the Mount Vernon Square-7th Street-Convention Center station said that rescuers didn't arrive for 45 minutes after the accident, in which some passengers were showered with glass as the train hit the side of the tunnel wall, according to witnesses.

So what do you think about the situation? For today's Poll Center question, we ask: Do you feel safe on Metro after Sunday's derailment? Go vote (and comment) here and see how your fellow commuters voted station by station, line by line.

» "The Morning News: Green Line Train Derails" [Free Ride/Express]
» "20 Injured in Crash of 2 Red Line Trains" [WaPo]
» "Federal Investigators Question Metro's Safety" [WaPo]

Photo by Gerald Martineau/The Washington Post

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