This 14-year-old 'train nerd' holds Metro accountable for misinformation

[mahatmakanejeeves]

"One of us. One of us."

Express | DC Rider

This 14-year-old ‘train nerd’ holds Metro accountable for misinformation

By Kery Murakami
December 4

When Sam Mencimer was just 2, his parents used to take him on Metro, and he’d excitedly watch the trains go by. Over the years, the trains and how they operate turned into a fascination for the self-admitted "train nerd.”

One night in November, for instance, he posted a picture on Twitter of the desk in his room. His lamp has a shade with Metro’s map on it, and his computer screens tracked trains on the Red, Orange, Blue, Green and Yellow lines.

He also seems to know a lot about Metro’s new 7000-series cars. For that, he gets teased by his friends at the BASIS DC charter school, where he is a sophomore. “But it’s good-natured," he said. "They’re all nerds, too.”

I have a full #wmata themed desk tonight , complete with
@dcmetrohero
filling my monitors, my
@wmata
lamp, and
@piengineering
raildriver controller for train simulator. I’m a complete nerd.

Link to tweet

As Mencimer, 14, has gotten older and became a regular commuter himself by taking the Green Line from his home near U Street to school by the Archives Metro station, he sometimes has become frustrated. And like a lot of similarly frustrated Metro commuters, he has taken to Twitter “to vent,” he said, complaining one day that the headlight was out on his train, and on another day about a yellow cone on the tracks at U Street. ... (Granted, it’s difficult to tell sometimes if he’s acting like adult commuters, or if the adults on Twitter are acting like 14-year-olds.) ... But nothing was as frustrating for him as a day last month when Metro gave him a bit of misinformation.
....

Got a story about riding Metro or have a question? Send it to [e-mail] or @theDCrider.

Kery Murakami is a reporter focusing on feature stories about those who ride and work in the Metro system. He also serves as an advocate to get the transit system to answer questions and deal with concerns raised by its customers. Follow https://twitter.com/theDCrider

Hmmm. I don't recognize those apps. I have an interactive Metrorail system map on my Kindle Fire and Samsung tablets, but I don't recognize the ones he has on his two monitors. Once I find out, I'm adding them.

We dig a little deeper. This is the app running on the lower monitor. He has five windows open, running side by side so that he can watch trains on five lines -- Silver, Yellow, Blue, Green, Red -- simultaneously. That's Ft. Totten at the top of the Yellow Line window.

MetroHero

NEW: Real train IDs—the same ones that #WMATA uses operationally—now appear throughout out app and
@metroheroalerts
! We also added crowdsourced train tags and service gaps to our My Commute feature.

Link to tweet

Oh, and we also released a new version of our iOS app that allows you to start it even when you don't have an Internet connection, e.g. in a Metro station or in a train tunnel with poor cell service. Update now available in the Apple App Store. (link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/metrohero/id1375269139) itunes.apple.com/us/app/metrohe… #wmata

Link to tweet

Which is a problem with the app I use. It drops out between stations and has to restart every time I enter a new station.

What's on the upper monitor? Well, there are two windows open. The narrow window to the left shows the Orange Line. It's a continuation of the windows open on the lower monitor. The app running on the bigger window, to the right? I don't know.

Yet.

[IronLionZion]

1. I just downloaded the MetroHero app

which I hadn't heard of until you posted this. Looks pretty good. Used it this morning and put in my commuting stations.

And I chuckled at this story. It's hardly the first time a kid has caught adults lying so blatantly.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. It was new to me too.

Last edited Thu Dec 6, 2018, 12:08 PM - Edit history (1)

What I have had on my tablets for about two months is this, which is just plain awesome:

DCMetroMonitor

I find it troublesome to run while I'm riding trains, as it refreshes every ten seconds or so. Once the train leaves the station and enters the tunnel, I lose connectivity. I rely on WMATA's wifi to run DCMetroMonitor. I link to DCMetroMonitor's website; I do not run it as an app, in the sense that you would download it from the Apple Store or Google Play.

I see MetroHero is available as an app for the iOS platform. I would need it as an app at Google Play to run on my Samsung tablet. Further, even if were at Google Play, it might or might not run as an app on the Kindle Fire. The Kindle Fire runs on the Fire OS, which is an offshoot of Android. Not all apps that run on Android will run on the Fire OS.

MetroHero FAQ

Oh, they do have an Android app. I can't copy the text, at least not without a few intermediate steps.

-- -- -- --

GreaterGreaterWashington had an article about three months ago on linking to data from Amtrak and, by extension, local transit systems. I posted about it in the Public Transportation and Smart Growth forum:

Amtrak's data could help riders and employees -- too bad it's so hard to find

Best wishes, and good morning.