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WMSC highlights audit work and three corrective‑action 'safety wins' including yard control fixes and hazard tracking
Summary
WMSC staff reported progress on the triennial audit cycle, verified Metro upgrades to yard control boards, a new hazard dashboard for roadway maintenance machines, and clarified fire‑life‑safety asset inspections; commissioners requested trend analysis across audit cycles.
WMSC staff on June 10 updated commissioners on audits, corrective action plan (CAP) progress and recent safety improvements at Metro Rail yards and maintenance programs.
Staff said the WMSC is in its third triennial audit cycle. The revenue vehicle and roadway‑maintenance‑machine audit delivered preliminary findings in April; Metro submitted additional materials and staff requested further documents to complete their review. An automatic train control, signals and communications audit — which will also serve as the WMSC’s annual roadway‑worker‑protection (RWP) review under 49 C.F.R. §671 — began with an entrance conference on June 8 and will collect information and observations through the summer.
John, a WMSC audit lead, described three CAP‑driven safety improvements the agency verified in recent weeks. At Alexandria Yard, Metro restored redundant worker‑location protections in seven digital yard control boards (previously a physical clip on older boards prevented routing into areas with workers); WMSC staff observed the new redundant protections at Silver Spring and Alexandria Yard on May 26. For roadway maintenance machines, Metro implemented a hazard‑report dashboard to centrally track hazards, owners, current and expected risk ratings, mitigation status and planned actions — closing a previous gap where hazard data was only kept in isolated work orders. And for fire‑life‑safety assets, Metro established a single definition of covered assets (fire suppression, fire alarms, emergency egress and emergency response tools), updated inspection and reinspection timelines, and is deploying revised maintenance tracking in Maximo to correct identified deficiencies such as blocked egress and storage in refuge areas.
Commissioners asked whether audit findings repeat across cycles and requested deeper trend analysis. Staff said they have combined some audit topics this cycle to match Metro’s reorganization and said they will present trend analysis in a future meeting to identify recurring safety themes and better prioritize oversight.
The commission encouraged staff to continue verifying CAP milestones and to share after‑action reports from full‑scale Metro drills (which WMSC staff attended) and relevant Transportation Safety Institute materials for commissioner education.
WMSC will continue routine audit work and CAP monitoring and report progress to the commission at future public meetings.
