Shocking Photo From April Shows Awful State of Tracks Near East Falls Church Metro Station

The fallout continues from last Friday's derailment of a Silver Line Metro train near the East Falls Church station, which Metro blamed on "deteriorated" track ties, and a picture from all the way back in April suggests that even a child could see what poor shape they were in months before the derailment happened.

The derailment not only injured a person but shut down the station through the weekend at a time when Metro is going through a SafeTrack plan to fix chronic safety problems throughout the system. NBC reporter Adam Tuss tweeted Aug. 4 that Metro Board Chair Jack Evans "says employees may have to be fired after recent derailment. Says he's outraged. May call special board meeting."

A months-old photo may show why there's good reason for such ire. Twitter user John Cook posted the following picture on April 17, an alarming image he says was taken near East Falls Church that shows that many of the wooden ties were in such bad shape that some even appear to have almost disintegrated entirely.

My son noticed the @wmata track ties near East Falls Church were a little bit the worse for wear. Smart kid. pic.twitter.com/8WCuCgUPBS
— John Cook (@CookJohnC) April 17, 2016

Track ties aren't there for cosmetics -- when they get to that state, it fails to hold the rails together and they get pushed too far apart, which is what Metro officials think happened last Friday.

Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld said that he would have employees conduct a special supervisory inspection of all tracks in light of the derailment.

Image via Wikimedia