Photo by Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie.

Hoo, boy — if you thought that it had already been a laborious weekend for Metro, you ain’t seen nothing yet. WMATA isn’t taking too kindly to the Post’s big report this morning, an expose about the previous failures of Metrorail’s much-maligned crash avoidance system. The Post’s report leads with a terrifying story about a 2005 incident in which not two, but three trains’ avoidance systems failed, and gut feelings were the only thing separating Metro from having a three-train, rush hour pileup between Rosslyn and Foggy Bottom, underneath the Potomac River:

The train’s crash avoidance system indicated that the track ahead was clear, but Mitchell sensed danger in the distance. He decided to override the system and brake manually — then watched helplessly as his train rolled to a stop just 35 feet short of a train ahead. As a shaken Mitchell radioed Metro supervisors, he was interrupted by the operator of the train behind him, who announced that he had just caught sight of Mitchell’s train and hit his emergency brake. “You could hear the panic in his voice,” Mitchell said. That train ground to a halt 20 feet short of Mitchell’s.

A terribly frightening story — and one of the few parts of the report which WMATA doesn’t appear have a “correction” for. The transit agency, though, did have a sizable, bullet-pointed response to the rest of the story this morning [PDF], outlining their clarifications and commentary. The largest contention in that document argues that the Post’s claim that “After the 2005 incident, Metro’s safety office made six recommendations aimed at avoiding a recurrence. By the time of this summer’s crash, records show, none had been formally implemented and approved by the Tri-State Oversight Committee, which monitors Metro safety” is blatantly false, and provides explanations as to the quote-unquote resolution of all six.

The oversight committee, though, told the Post that they have “no evidence that Metro had put the recommendations into practice.”

Would a more thorough examination of the 2005 incident in question have helped to prevent this spring’s accident which killed nine? It’s a matter of he said, she said at this point — either way, both the Post report and Metro’s response are must-reads.