Cracking

Illustration. Via Flickr

From anonymous:

I took an unexpected trip to L'Enfant Plaza this morning (and wound up being 40 minutes late to work) all thanks to Metro.

I live in Crystal City and work in Rosslyn, so usually I take the Blue Line north to get to work. Today, however, both Blue and Yellow lines were backed up--apparently one of the rails on the Yellow Line bridge between Pentagon and L'Enfant had cracked, so they were single-tracking over the bridge.

As a result, half the Yellow Line trains were normal trains to Ft. Totten, while every other train were "special" trains to Smithsonian, which we were told--repeatedly, by the conductor--would run like a Blue Line train.

Since the platform at Crystal City was packed due to the backup, and I had to wait a ridiculously long time for any train at all to show up, I got on one of those special trains. Again, the conductor repeatedly told us that it was a special Yellow Line train to Smithsonian, so it would run like the Blue Line.

Well, you can probably guess what happened. After a start-and-stop trip through Pentagon City and Pentagon--during which there was a lot of stopping and holding and "moving momentarily"--suddenly we were outside on the Yellow Line bridge. At this point, the conductor told us the train was now a Yellow Line train to Ft. Totten.

If they were going to change the train, couldn't they have said something to us before we left Pentagon, so some of us had the chance to get off? How can they tell us they're going to take us in one direction and then, with no warning, change our destination with passengers on-board?

In the end, I had to get off L'Enfant, transfer to the Blue Line and head all the way back out to Rosslyn. Good thing I have understanding bosses, otherwise I could have lost my job.