October 7, 2009
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Things Fall Apart
So yesterday I mentioned something about some sort of explosion on the Metro, right? Apparently one of the collector shoes fell off of one of the train cars. I do not fancy myself an engineer but here’s the very basic way a collector shoe works. There are four on each train car and they run along the third rail (the third rail is full of electricity and makes the train run). One of these shoes fell off, presumably on the third rail and created a loud boom and a lot of smoke.
Without saying anything further, it’s bad news when your trains start falling apart… literally.
To brighten up the somber mood of the falling apart of the trains, WMATA (the lovely people who bring us Metro service here in DC-land) decided that yesterday was the perfect day to break the news that they spent $20,000 of their apparently very strapped budget to get two segway type vehicles for their transit po-po. In their defense, the segways are supposed to help the police get bad guys breaking into cars in the Metro garages but this begs the question as to how segway things help protect cars from bad guys. Can you run a person over with a segway???
Really, I for one feel soooo much better that the transit roflcopters have transit vehicles now that the trains are literally falling apart. Oh WMATA! What would we do without you?
Comments (15)
remind me not to move to DC.
ryc: unfortunately, it’s becoming truer everyday, i think. the smart ones will do well, though. let’s hope there are more of them than we know.
Grreat, something for me to think about next time I take the metro into DC
Explosions and wedding planning so your life is definitely not dull right now!! Glad you are fine though and getting through it all.
Yet another reason I’m glad I drive to work as opposed to Metro…
(Not that it’s saying much as traffic has gotten heavier and crappier this fall… )
I thought it was the ticket / fare collector’s shoes that fell off. I kept wondering how the heck does someone’s shoe fall off on the tracks? Don’t mind me…. I’ll be fine.
good book, btw – ‘things fall apart.’ i heard that the guy who developed the segway has created an artifical arm that can feel!
Your tax dollars, hardly at work… LOL
What is it with segways and DC?
Seems like you are really busy with one thing or another. What next?
Segways are the way of the future….an increasingly lazy one at that.
Yeah… that was my first impression. But knowing the guys I’ve known, I tend to question.
And glad I wasn’t on that train!
Even though I live in Texas hahah.
you ever wonder if those sling shot amusement things might do the same, a hang glider or the skycoaster or a roller coaster…I believe there is going to be a rash of these going on..betcha….isn’t it funny that there are far more people everywhere now, it would seem that the tax money would be bigger, and in some way, there would be an equal elevation in funds to people ratio…you never heard of so many places going financially strapped en masse? I still think it is funny that California was handing out IOU’s to workers and so forth until they got it fixed…but did they or any of these yokes get it fixed…Old Mayor Marion, smoke a little crack and pass the power on back…but nothing really seemed to change…it is like with the trains, someone said, “ah, that’s ok, those have been doing fine for years, lets allocate the money to our pockets..it will be cool”…the pump just don’t work because the vandals stole the handles….
be safe!!! omg! as for segways! the campus security at my university had those for a little while, until our collective teasing and general mocking brought them to their senses. Seriously, its worse than a Charlie Chaplin cartoon, watching a cop on one of those while chasing after a robber or trespasser… How are you besides all this transport madness?
i though the lil riding things were like 10,000 a hit. its what they said on channel 9 news. even still they need to fix infrastructure before worrying about more toys.