NEW: Metro has identified problems with its response to a 3/26 disabled train near Rhode Island Avenue station that affected 109 riders: poor communication, an inadequate response that left some riders stranded 90 mins, a train car that rolled 137 ft after riders got off. #wmata
GM Paul Wiedefeld says he’s taking several immediate steps, including adding Safety Dept. and Office of Emergency Management (OEM) staff to the rail operations control center 24/7 to coordinate the response to emergencies. #wmata
Metro says no one at the scene reported that a train car had rolled about 137 feet at less than five mph while they were trying to get it ready to tow. It should have been reported. #wmata
A Metro memo describes poor communication not just from Metro to customers but within Metro itself. For instance, Metro didn’t let it’s own police department know about the disabled train & passengers in a timely manner. Memo says MTPD could have boarded & helped them. #wmata
Metro‘s GM says he is also lowering the threshold for what is considered an emergency, believes it will lead to a better response to incidents like this. Metro’s Safety Department will lead the response to emergencies. #wmata
.@MetrorailSafety tells me Metro initially reported this just as a disabled train, then only later confirmed passengers had self-evacuated, then only 2 days ago reported the train rolling incident, which should have been reported within 2 hours - it nearly took 2 weeks. #wmata
.@MetrorailSafety - the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission - has safety oversight over Metro and is investigating, they are meeting on Tuesday and this incident will come up. #wmata
Metro says it’s safety investigators reported the rolling train incident to WMSC & FTA as soon as they learned of it-they say didn’t know about it for so long because #wmata employees in the field didn’t report it, investigators discovered it while listening to audio recordings.
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