Metro News Release

For immediate release: December 22, 2004

Train operator dismissed after collision

Metro officials announced today that the operator of an empty Metrorail train that rolled backward into another train that was servicing a station has been dismissed from his job effective yesterday, December 21.

The train operator had been working at Metro since November 1998 but had only been a train operator for 10 months.

On Wednesday, November 3, two Metrorail trains collided at the Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan Metrorail station when an empty six-car train that was being taken to a rail yard to prepare for the afternoon rush hour drifted backward and collided with a six-car train that was servicing the station. Twenty individuals with minor, non-life threatening injuries were treated and released from local hospitals.

Metro conducted an internal investigation and terminated the train operator based on an evaluation of all of the investigation’s relevant technical data, the operator’s testimony, and the operator’s gross violation of basic operations procedures during the incident.

As a part of its internal investigation, Metro managers interviewed the train operator on two separate occasions, conducted tests on the trains involved in the collision and conducted tests on trains similar to the ones involved in the collision. Metro investigators determined that the railcar equipment, including the brakes of the incident train, functioned properly as they are designed to do. Metro’s internal investigation determined that the train operator’s actions during the incident were cause for dismissal.

The National Transportation Safety Board also is conducting an investigation into the collision.

News release issued on December 22, 2004.