Monday's Mission -- November 25, 2014

Monday started my week of time off from work that would coincide with the Thanksgiving Holiday. Although I had made arrangements not go into DC on the train, for work as usual, I did make a plan to go into DC for a different purpose. The morning was 66 degrees after it being in the 30s all the previous week. Condensation dripped off of every surface in the garages and in the elevators at the BWI train station.

Every day I pass the usual denizens of G Street and the connecting streets between the Red Line Metro and the office building where I work. A couple of people are the daily regulars while others are there on their own itineraries and circuit around the city. Sheila was at her normal station, parked near the corner by the Bank. Two men were at their places along the block with empty coffee cups seeking coins from passers-by. I cannot support all of them to the level of comfort to which they have become accustomed. Therefore, I usually nod to their presence and keep moving. There is a keen-eye telegraph system in place where the success of one is apprehended by the others down the line and each giver of alms cataloged for future approach for another dollar or two. It is little different than NPR, the Special Olympics and Breast Cancer appeals that arrive in a somewhat higher medium of Telephone and email.

My mission for the day was to find the guy who I'd see sitting in a cheap Medicaid-wheelchair biding his time during the day. For him the front caster wheels has long since stopped being wheels and were best described as plastic skids that wore a bit further down each block he traveled. After not seeing this man for a couple of weeks, he turned up by the Au Bon Pain sitting with his back to the wall last Friday. It was then that I noticed the desperate condition of those front wheels. As usual I was on my way to the train for the commute back to Baltimore.

All weekend I thought about the sight of those decrepit wheels and the struggle that it would have been on a daily basis to move that semblance of a wheelchair and himself along the sidewalk. I reasoned that the wheels looked to be about the same size as a pair that I had on a spare wheelchair and that they might find use for him as opposed to gathering dust in my spare room.

I made a plan that would get me down to DC mid-day when it would be more likely that he would show up. After all I had no idea where he came from or how he would get there. I also figured that if I didn't see him right away, I could stash the wheels and tools at my office down the block. I didn't see him on my way in so I headed to the office to drop off my box of hardware.

At the office I explained to my boss why I was there after making the arrangement to be off the entire week. He asked, "What is it that we should do about such situations." His question addressed the broader picture of the thousands of people who have some needs like his. "Doesn't he have access to Medicaid?" I supposed that he didn't or he certainly would have gotten new tires a lot sooner. My answer was that we needed to adopt the British medical model where people who have such needs just go and get that they need. "OH, you mean that socialist system?" That was exactly what I meant.

We talked about a few related medical and medical transportation issues before the noon hour came. I was not planning to stay in DC for lunch so I started to get ready to leave. I had describe the man I was trying to met up with and he said he knew who I meant. Upon return from getting his lunch, he told me "my guy" was down the block at the Au Bon Pain.

I picked up my tools and the wheels and headed down the block to meet up with him. I said, "I brought some spare caster wheels that might fit. Do you want them?" He said yes, but he'd need some pliers to change them. I told him I brought tools too. We first took time to separate the wheels from the casters since there was no way to bolt them onto his frame where the caster casings were welded on.

Then he stood up for as long as he could to flip the front end up to better reach the battered old plastic wheels. We loosened the axles and swapped out the old hubs for the new wheels. All and all it took about a half hour to complete the operation. A trash receptacle across the sidewalk took all the miscellaneous bits and pieces of what once was wheels.

We exchanged first names and Sid thanked me for the wheels. Never had he expected to be the recipient of new wheels in such a manner on the street where he would daily come to sit and bide time until the day was once again gone.

As I said before, the activities on the block do not go unnoticed by the regulars. There is a telegraph system that passes information up and down the block. Sheila, who always says hello to me and nothing else coherent, clearly said to me, "that was very kind of you doing that. You'll certainly be blessed for it."

I told her, "I already have been."

So Where IS Plan B?

I have commuted between BWI Rail station and Union Station for 16 year. I've seen the best service and the worst service events in that time. Mechanical failures are inevitable. They are related to equipment age and funding issues. The bigger failures are always the ones that are compounded when company management fails to appreciate the gravity of the situations they allow to take place by their short-sighted responses and lack of timely information. There is no excuse for a poor or non-existent plan.

Several years ago, I was fortunate to not be commuting on the MARC Penn Line on the occasion of a mid-summer breakdown that lasted several hours. The train was stalled on the tracks between stations and a rescue locomotive was dispatched but the entire ordeal lasted the several hours in the afternoon heat that caused several passengers to experience medical emergencies. It was only my work travel schedule that had me elsewhere on that fateful day.

Stalled without power, the HVAC systems were not functioning and the interior temperatures of the bi-level cars climbed over 100 degrees. A lack of useful information and emergency planning by the MTA management and staff left passengers to fend for themselves. People in each can took it upon themselves to remove the emergency exit window panel in order to create some level of ventilation. Even with the windows out the stifling heat prompted some passengers to climb out on to the track bed to get away. Many walked over the berm and found their own way home at the end of a very bad ride.

After that incident, the MTA furnished promises that they would handle any future such events with more competent response. One of the plan elements was a supply of emergency bottled water. Fast forward to May 28, 2010. Again I was fortunate to be on company travel and not on the stalled train. The evening express train, 435, leaving Union Station experienced mechanical troubles just south of the New Carrollton station and was pushed back to DC for a different locomotive. That incident did get handles in an expedient manner and the passenger, though delayed and irritated, were not left stranded in dangerous heat conditions.

June 21, 2010, the 5:38 departure from Union Station with a full consignment of 900 passengers left the station only to become stranded by a stalled locomotive between stations. This time the braking systems became locked and the rescue locomotive could not move the train. These 900 passengers were stranded inside the aluminum cars once again. If one thinks that emergency water was available in June, that person would have been wrong. There were many opportunities for the management to load the water supplies aboard the train, but did not do it. There are several allocated cars on MARC Trains that are called Café Cars. In those cars there is a compartment large enough for many dozens water bottles. An interesting observation I made on June 23, is that there was a new nylon tie sealing the door of the Café compartment with the date 6-23-10 inscribed on it. I suspect that just maybe there is a supply of bottled water in there for the next time the train breaks down in the afternoon DC heat.