Personally, I Prefer Asteroids
What you're looking at above is a video of "what a train controller sees when a train is operating through a circuit that's been turned off for maintenance," according to WTOP. Now, perhaps it's just me, but: isn't it indicative of the current state of Metro that their train monitoring system is apparently running off an old Atari 2600? Can WMATA operators get Pitfall on that thing after the system closes for the night?
Really, all this video makes one want to do -- other than pause it midway and spend Saturday rummaging through other more interesting YouTube clips -- is pop in 1983's WarGames, in which a pubescent Matthew Broderick has similar, if not much better, technology in his suburban bedroom than WMATA has monitoring their trains crammed full of Washingtonian citizens. Reassuring, no?
It's a little-known fact the first draft of this script called for Broderick to ask the computer not to play "Global Thermonuclear War," but "Keep The Metrorail Trains On The Right Tracks." Okay, that's not true -- that would be a very, very boring movie. Plus, it lacks dynamic Cold War intrigue, unless perhaps there were two Metro trains carrying nuclear warheads that NORAD would need to stop before it destroyed the city. Or something.
In all seriousness, though, this video -- clearly designed to reassure riders that Metro's got a handle on situations in light of this week's inflammatory Post report -- offers little of that said reassurance. Instead, if anything, it's confirmation that Metro's most vital technology is desperately in need of a serious upgrade. You know, as if we didn't already know that.