That's what some people probably thought.

Just what this "capital city" needed for its already jangled nerves.

Jan was on the subway. I was late --still at home.   She called from the Red Line (where else?, the same one where 9 people, as I recall, were killed in a crash earlier this year--and the same one I take Mon through Fri. She told me there was a problem:   

Big boom in her car and several cars behind. Lifted the cars off their tracks. First car on fire. Corridor of her car full of smoke. Screaming from the first car. The train did get to Meto Center.   Everybody evacuated.

She was quite calm when she called.   She agreed that it must be some sort of malfunction--again. Terrorists would do more than lift the train off the rail.

This time it turns out, per Washington Post online:   "a collector shoe, which sends power from the third rail to the train, fell off a train, causing a fire under the lead car of a six-car train."



No terrorists will ever have to attack DC. It will grind to a halt just from speculation arising from our collapsing infrastructure and transportation system.