Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON – (WMAL) The chair of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s Board of Directors Jack Evans made a startling admission about an incident last week where two passengers decided to get off a train that was ultimately stopped for more than half an hour near Farragut North Sept. 13.
The operator never let passengers know why the train was stopped and when it would be moving again.
“If I’m stuck on a train, and I’m not getting told anything, and 10, 15 minutes goes by and in the back of my mind is, you know, ‘is this thing gonna fill up with smoke? What’s gonna happen here? Nobody’s telling me what to do.’ Yeah. My personality would be, yeah, I’d kick the door open and get off, but I hope that other people don’t have that personality and they actually stay on the train,” Evans said.
Metro’s General Manager Paul Wiedefeld told reporters people should never get off trains that aren’t stopped at platforms unless told to do so because they could get electrocuted by the third rail.
“In my background in aviation, you know, if you sit on the tarmac for three hours, you don’t open the door and take the slide down and get on the tarmac. That is not, you know, you can not take that risk,” Wiedefeld said.
Still, frustrated passengers do occasionally decide to get off trains rather than wait.
Wiedefeld said operators are supposed to update passengers with information and didn’t know why that didn’t happen in this case. He also wouldn’t say whether that operator is still on the job.
Copyright 2016 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (photo: file photo, Heather Curtis)
