WMATA

a very insightful comment to a very informative article:

Oh to be clear, there were no industry standards in America.

WMATA clearly had their own, internal standards. They just chose not to follow them! Fromthe NTSB report again, page 4:

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority was not following its tunnel-washing and insulator-cleaning procedure.

So in a sense, it's even worse than it seems! WMATA went through the trouble to develop its own policies and procedures that (for all we know at the moment) were totally sufficient and maybe even high-quality. Then, for unknown reasons, the Authority stopped following them. This contributed to a death. Then, the Authority promised to start following those procedures. Then, 16 months after that promise, it looks like that didn't happen!

Also, the references to stopping the washing for environmental reasons come from page 42 of the final NTSB report. The WMATA told the NTSB several things about the tunnel washing program and it's unclear (1) if it was actually stopped at any point and (2) if they stopped, why it was stopped. Overall, this isn't a favorable fact pattern for WMATA.

by WRD on Sep 28, 2016 2:32 pm

the entire article & all the comments: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/33662/on-thursday-the-wmata-board-heard-about-why-metro-keeps-catching-on-fire-then-on-friday-metro-caught/