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Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Red Line Tragedy

It is ironic that a popular movie this week is a remake of the 1974 film  "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, a Denzel Washington vehicle that also features all the modern technology devised to prevent subway-train crashes.

Hijackers thwart the safety gizmos in the fictional depiction, but investigators today were still trying to figure out what went terribly wrong and allowed two commuter trains to collide in Washington on Monday, killing nine people and leaving almost 80 injured.

Washington’s popular Metro system is equipped with a fail-safe signal system that should have prevented the rush-hour accident. There is a precedent, however; the Washington Post reports that only the quick thinking of two operators who noticed their trains were too close prevented a similar crash four years ago.

Eyewitness accounts suggest the operator of the second train in Monday’s crash either did not apply the brakes, or did not do that fast enough, to keep it from ramming the first train, which had stopped. But there were also reports that the older train was overdue for brake maintenance.

It will likely take the National Transportation Safety Board some time to make a final ruling. It took two years before it attributed a 2006 head-on collision of two SEPTA trains to human error; finally concluding that one engineer ignored warning signals and a dispatcher didn’t intervene. Thirty-eight people were injured.

The carnage after Monday’s wreck on the Red Line was “unbelievable,” to quote Metro General Manager John B. Crane Jr. The first car of the second train went airborne and landed on top of the first train. Inside the crushed cars, passengers suffered cuts, broken bones, and other injuries.

Good wishes are extended to the injured victims, and condolences to the families of those who died. The Red Line wreck was a reminder that even with one of the safest, technologically advanced modes of transportation, the unexpected can occur.
 

Posted by Harold Jackson @ 4:31 PM  Permalink | Post a comment
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About The Inquirer Editorial Board
Harold Jackson, a winner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing, grew up in Birmingham, Ala., during the civil rights movement. He graduated from Baker University in Baldwin, Kan., in 1975, with a degree in journalism/political science. He has also worked at the Birmingham Post-Herald, United Press International, the Birmingham News, and the Baltimore Sun. He was at The Inquirer in the mid-1980s, returned in 1999, and became editorial page editor in 2007.

Paul Davies is the deputy editor of the Editorial Page. His newspaper career has spanned more than 20 years and includes stints at The Wall Street Journal and the Philadelphia Daily News. He graduated from the University of Delaware and received a masters in journalism from Columbia University, where he was also a Knight-Bagehot Fellow. He was born in Philadelphia and still lives in the city.

Tony Auth began drawing while bedridden for a year and a half at the age of five. He graduated from UCLA in 1965 and worked for six years as a medical illustrator while doing three cartoons a week for various college newspapers. Tony has been happily ensconced as The Inquirer’s editorial cartoonist since 1971. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976, and has won numerous other awards, including five Overseas Press Club Awards, the Sigma Delta Chi award for distinguished service in Journalism, and the Herblock and Thomas Nast Prizes. Tony is married to Eliza Drake Auth, a painter of realistic landscapes and portraits.

Trudy Rubin is the foreign affairs columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a member of The Inquirer’s editorial board. Her column appears twice weekly in The Inquirer and runs regularly in many other newspapers around the United States. She is the author of Willful Blindness: The Bush Administration and Iraq.

Kevin Ferris is an assistant editor on the Editorial Board who oversees the Sunday Currents section and writes a weekly column on a wide range of issues. In his 15 years on the board, he’s handled letters to the editor and the Community Voices pages and has been Commentary Page editor. He started with The Inquirer in 1986, and his assignments have ranged from the copy and news desks to the Chester County bureau and the national/foreign desk.

As an editorial writer for The Inquirer for the past two decades, Russell Cooke has written on a wide range of topics covering government, legal, civic and social issues. Before joining the Editorial Board, he was a reporter in the Inquirer’s City Hall bureau.

Editorial writer Dave Boyer joined The Inquirer in 2002. He writes about politics, government, the economy, sports and many other subjects, but draws the line at writing about "Jon & Kate Plus Eight." He has won journalism awards and insists bribery was not involved. A native of Allentown, Boyer graduated from Penn State. He and his wife reside in Center City, where they enjoy strolling and paying the wage tax.

Melanie Burney joined the editorial board in January 2008 after covering education at the Inquirer for eight years. She previously worked at the Associated Press in Philadelphia and southern New Jersey. She is a graduate of Glassboro State College, now Rowan University, and a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Josh Gohlke has been The Inquirer’s op-ed editor since last year, editing the daily commentary page and writing occasional editorials. He came to the Inquirer after eight years at The Record of Bergen County, N.J., first as a reporter covering local and state politics and government and ultimately as the deputy editorial page editor. He also worked as a reporter for several smaller papers in New Jersey and California. Josh was born and raised in Los Angeles and graduated from Stanford University. He lives in Philadelphia.

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