By BJ Austin
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-951224.mp3
Dallas, TX –
Last Tuesday, icy winter weather shut down the entire rail system for most of the day.
DART President Gary Thomas says that winter storm was too fast and ferocious for crews to combat, and switches froze almost immediately.
But DART Board member Mark Enoch disagrees.
Enoch: We're now having to say yeah, we could have run the rains all night. But if he had run our trains all night, it might not have worked. I don't want to be in the position of saying had we executed our plan, it might not have worked. I always want to be in a position of we executed our plan and it either worked or it didn't work.
Enoch says DART's reputation for reliability has been hit hard.
Thomas told Enoch that DART planned to run several trains all night "last night" in preparation for this morning's storm.
At the height of morning rush hour today, DART trains were running at least 40 minutes behind schedule.