Two near-misses on MetroRail line

Those of you who ride the MetroRail regularly might be interested in reports today of two near collisions caused when trains were running on the wrong tracks. Both happened earlier this month, six days apart; the good news is that no passengers were in danger. More or less.

The first incident happened at 8:30 a.m. May 9 near the Smith Lands station south of the Medical Center. A crew was working on a switch near the station that allows trains to move between the north- and southbound tracks: "As the train approached the switch, the switch was thrown in the opposing direction which would in effect take the train from the northbound track and shift it to the southbound track," Metro's David Feeley told KTRK. "The switch maintainer then left the switch in that position and flagged the train to proceed." The train continued northbound on the southbound track for about a half-mile. When the operator reached the next station, TMC Transit Center, she called controllers and asked what she should do — and it turns out the controllers apparently hadn't noticed what was going on, the Chronicle reports. Controllers told the operator not to move the train, and they also ordered a southbound train at the Dryden/TMC station not to proceed until the trains could be rerouted.

The second incident, on May 15, involved another switching mistake between two empty trains at Metro's rail yard at the south end of the line. Feeley told the Chronicle that one train was leaving the yard on the northbound track as another crossed over from the southbound track; a supervisor who would normally have been on hand to keep that from happening was tending to another incident. The operators of the two trains, which were going about 5 mph, saw each other in time to stop and avoid a collision.

So should any of this worry you? We suppose it depends on how easily worried you are: These are the first incidents where trains have switched to the wrong track in the light rail line's more than three years of operation, and Metro took action on both, suspending people involved in the May 9 incident and putting the TranStar controller who nearly allowed a collision May 15 under direct supervision. Though Metro's John Sedlak said mistakes were made, he insisted that riders were never in danger. "The system is safe to ride," Sedlak said. "While mistakes were made, the railroad performed safely even in the face of unusual behavior," he told the Chronicle.