A Metro train derailed outside College Park, Maryland, on the Fourth of July, evacuating all 11 passengers aboard and sending one man to the hospital — another black eye for a transit agency that can't keep its rails straight while Washington ships hundreds of billions overseas and dumps more into green energy subsidies that don't move a single commuter to work.
The single-car derailment on the Green/Yellow line hit just before noon Saturday, according to Prince George's County Fire/EMS, which responded to the 4900 block of Calvert Road. Three passengers were evaluated for heat-related symptoms, per WJLA and Baltimore News. One adult man was transported for further medical evaluation; another refused transport.
WMATA is investigating what it called a "potential heat-related track issue," WTOP reported. The agency immediately imposed systemwide speed restrictions at all above-ground stations and launched heat inspections across the network. Metro forces trains to slow when track temperatures hit 135 degrees — a threshold the D.C. region has been hitting with increasing regularity.
The transit authority's novel fix? Painting rails white to reflect sunlight. Metro Deputy General Manager Andy Off told WTOP that early results show a six- to eight-degree temperature drop on painted segments. Call it innovation or call it desperation — a capital that can't keep trains on the tracks is now relying on a coat of paint.
Green and Yellow Line trains were single-tracking between Hyattsville Crossing and College Park following the derailment, with Yellow Line service truncated to run only between Huntington and Mt. Vernon Square to cut train traffic. Riders heading toward Greenbelt were told to use the Green Line. Expect delays, the agency said — as if D.C. commuters needed another reason to doubt the system.
WJLA and Baltimore News ran nearly identical copy on the incident, focusing on the evacuation count and heat evaluations, but neither touched WMATA's track-temperature protocols or the white-paint pilot. WTOP alone reported the agency's heat threshold and Off's comments on the paint experiment — the kind of operational detail that tells you just how thin the margin is between a running system and a derailed car.
Here is the question that matters: the same federal establishment that greenlights blank-check aid packages and subsidizes wind farms abroad can't keep a 3000-series train car on the rails in its own backyard. The tracks are buckling. The paint is drying. And the people who ride this system every day are left to wonder which failure comes next.
