Five Metro employees suspended in extra-car Incident

To be clear, the author of this blog has represented many fine Metro employees including officers of Local 689, The Amalgamated Transit Workers. Hard-working, well-trained and highly intelligent, these people have important work that they take very seriously.

However, there are times when we are obliged to report and comment on some dangerous or screwy things that they do from time to time. Today it is a report that five Metro employees have been placed on leave pending a Metro investigation of how they came to put a ten car train into service Monday morning on the Green Line. You see station platforms are only eight cars long. Which is to say that the extra cars are not only dangerous to passengers but also useless.

You may recall an incident where this occurred at the Greenbelt Station and the operator reportedly tested positive on drug screening and went into rehab. I mean the Metro people can count and know how many cars a station can service, so how is this possible?

Let's hope its not drugs or alcohol but some innocent miscommunication. At least nobody was hurt.