How much is your time and trauma worth after being stuck on a derailed train for nearly two hours and walking through a tunnel to get to safety?

Apparently $21 in ride credits.

In a statement, Metro said it is “working to reach out to customers that were on board the train that derailed last week and are providing a $21 SmarTrip credit. While it does not make up for their experience, we wanted to offer an apology along with this small gesture of appreciation.” The calculation was for six rides for the average Metrorail ride cost, $3.50. In all, Metro is doling out less than $4,000 worth of credits to the 187 riders.

The idea didn’t seem to please some riders at all.

One passenger who says they were on the train posted on Reddit with the only comment, “Thanks WMATA. Pain.”

Another Reddit user posted: “I was in this train too and am also getting $21. Honestly, at first it was a really scary experience with the smoke in the cars and etc. but the worst part was literally not hearing anything from the conductors for about 15 minutes, and even then they didn’t give us any clarity, just saying that they were working on the problem.”

None of the 187 passengers on board the derailed train were injured (one was transported to the hospital as a precaution), but the incident could’ve been a lot worse, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The train hit the electrified third rail, which could’ve started a fire, but luckily didn’t.

“We are fortunate that no fatalities or serious injuries occurred as a result of any of these derailments,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy. “But the potential for fatalities and serious injuries was significant. This could have resulted in a catastrophic event.”

Passenger Mary Kate Martin told DCist she hasn’t been contacted by Metro yet about the $21 credit (Metro says it’s still reaching out to each of the riders on the train). She said she paid for the derailed trip and is of two minds with the $21 credit.

“No one was hurt and it was just a huge inconvenience so that numbers fits when you think of two hours of lost time (at least for me, on my way home from work, not catching a flight or going to work or anything more important),” she told DCist/WAMU. “On the other hand, all this reporting on the derailment seems to show that metro knew about these issues and just didn’t do anything about them, meaning this little blip could have been much, much worse. And when you think about THAT, $21 doesn’t seem even close to enough.”

Metro had known about the wheel issues, where wheels had moved outwards on the axle, since 2017. They replaced the wheelsets when the issue was found, but the problems kept cropping up with more instances this year. Metro told the NTSB it had 31 wheel assembly failures in 2017. An additional 21 cars were found to have the issue during the inspections last week.

The original Reddit poster had the same thoughts as Martin. “Honestly, I don’t need any compensation just more clarity as to what happened. It’s pretty discouraging hearing how they’re all about safety but these articles saying they knew about the wheel damage for like 4 years rubs me the wrong way.”

“There was a solid moment where there was a bit of smoke in each traincar, and I wondered if I would die there,” the user said in a direct message to DCist/WAMU. “It was all good in the end, and all in all a very mild situation, but there was a lot of fear in the beginning there.”

The Metrorail Safety Commission ordered the 7000-series train model involved in the derailment sidelined while Metro figures out the situation. Trains are running every 30-40 minutes and passengers are upset with service this week.

Martin said she took Metro on Monday, but it took her two hours to get to work. She said the 30-40 delays between trains are difficult and she took Uber on Tuesday.”It’s been a mess… trains are packed and the arrival times just change. My Blue Line train yesterday went from 8 minutes to 15 minutes to delay back to 18 minutes. And a lot of people don’t really have other options. So it basically stinks,” she said.