Metros book of safety rules for rail operations runs more than 700 pages, a manual so thick that some transit employees refer to it by a nickname: the Brick.

In January after a deadly smoke event in a subway tunnel revealed problems with Metros emergency preparedness a fat new paragraph was added.

The insert warns, in part:

While in the control center, persons should refrain from shouting or becoming involved in loud cross-chatter between consoles/workstations.

The 108-word insert was directed at employees of the Rail Operations Control Center, or the ROCC, where workers monitor the second-busiest U.S. subway, governing the movements of trains.

During a crisis such as the event in which scores of rail passengers were caught in a smoke-filled tunnel outside LEnfant Plaza, the ROCCs role is to calmly and proficiently help direct Metros immediate response.

On Jan.12, however, the center apparently contributed to the chaos.

Moments after a Virginia-bound Yellow Line train left the station at LEnfant Plaza that afternoon, it encountered heavy smoke in the tunnel and stopped. Amid a subsequent cascade of mechanical and communications failures, the six-car train remained stationary as sickened riders, coughing and gasping for air, waited more than 30minutes for help to arrive. One passenger, 61-year-old Carol Glover, died of smoke inhalation.

How the controllers and supervisors based in the ROCCs Landover offices conducted themselves that day, after an electrical malfunction on the tracks generated a massive volume of smoke, is one of many aspects of the crisis under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Although the NTSB and Metro officials have declined to comment on the performance of the ROCC whose director retired in February the instructions added to the Brick on Jan.21 suggest there were problems that day:

More here:
Addition to Metro safety manual suggests problems at control center

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