Slip-Sliding Away

Fearing that too many riders thought “Slippery Rail” was the reason LIRR workers gave for their bum knees and sore backs on their disability forms, the MTA issued printouts on Metro-North yesterday informing riders of the autumnal peril alternately known as Slippery Rail and Slip-Slide.

“This condition is created by a slimy substance left by crushed leaves on our rails that gets even more slippery and slimy after it rains,” it reads. “When a train attempts to speed up or slow down, this gelatinous “slime” can cause the wheels to slip or slide along the rails. In severe cases the train will automatically make an emergency stop, because the on-board computer system perceives “slip-sliding” as excessive speed.”

Slipping-sliding cars get flat wheels, the MTA explains, the cars are taken out of service to make the wheels round again, and riders are jammed into sometimes half the number of cars as is normal.  

The “ditto,” as we called them several decades ago, then explains the various measures the MTA is employing to combat Slippery Rail, such as reprogramming the software of the M7 fleet to allow the braking system to adjust to slip-slide conditions, reducing speeds through leafy patches, using rail-washers and scrubbers to remove dead leaves from tracks, and also shooting sand onto the tracks to make them grippier. (Yes, we just made up “grippier.”)

These measures actually made Slippery Rail a non-factor last year. (If I recall, the leaves started falling much later last year.) Will Metro-North win the battle again this year?