Disabled Train
If you ride the T you are familiar with the mysterious disabled train that haunts the punctual among us. I have never been lucky enough to happen on one. Tonight’s experience suggests that more often than the MBTA would like to admint, a poorly trained operator barrels into the station a bit too fast, is slow on the breaks and overshoots the exit.
If you ever find yourself in a position where someone asks if the subway car you are building needs to be able to reverse, please say “yes.” Consider the occasion that some operator misses the exit and needs to back up a few feet. Suggesting that such incidents are so rare that one could easily deploy a reverse pushing vehicle to facilitate is a poor choice.