by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Those who spend a lot of time on the metro face a serious health threat. While the train barrels through the underground, your innards are shaken and jolted on your clean white skeleton by six forces: surge (fore and aft), heave (up and down), sway (side to side) as well as the angular motions of pitch, roll and yaw.

The metro brass is concerned about vibrations on the green line trains (Peel, McGill etc.). The trains on that line were built in 1963 and have been in use since the system opened four years later. The orange line was built a decade after and introduced during the 1976 Olympics and isn't considered too shaky. But the green line could be dangerous in the long term to those who spend a lot of time riding it, specifically the metro drivers.

This I learnt from an insider over a few big cans of Grolsch, a clean Dutch beer that goes for $30 for 24, passable when there's no amber rum handy.

Metro drivers spend the day jiggling in air-conditioned cabins, sitting on fold-down chairs small enough to persuade many to stand. Female drivers wear special reinforced bras to counteract the effects of Newtonian physics.

The metro has two drivers. One sits at the back and reads the Journal de Montréal. The other driver actually takes temporary control of the reins when the automatic commands fail. This happens when the wheels lose contact with track sensors, which can occur when there's liquid on the tracks. The train stops automatically, using Quebec-grown wood brakes.

Metro drivers are also skilled at walking alongside the electric tracks, a dangerous art that requires training and special, heavy rubber shoes. A surprising number of pranksters and nutbars risk death by walking alongside the high-voltage rails. The highest occurrence of reckless trackwalking occurs at the downtown stops of McGill and Peel, where fools are doubtlessly tempted by the fact that they can see all the way to the next station. Track invasions are also frequent on the Longueuil line, where distraught casino losers sometimes wander down the tunnels. When a wanderer is spotted, metro staff shut the juice and four security staffers march from different directions to remove the interloper via doors on the tunnel walls.

Idiots frequently paralyze the system by frivolously pulling the bar out of the emergency glass boxes. This causes the entire line to shut down until an MTC official drives from Berri to replace the bar. One infuriating person pulled the bar about 40 times in a year at a stop just east of Berri. The MTC put in special cameras but never caught him.

The drivers have virtually all witnessed suicide attempts close up. In one awful case, some fool jumped from the platform high above the tracks, only to land smack on the train windshield in front of the driver.

Drivers have their share of misfortunes too. One tragedy occurred a few years ago when a conductor stuck his head out the window at the wrong time. A lesser-known accident occurred a couple of years back when a driver, waiting for his train to turn around at the designated area north of the Henri Bourassa station, made the mistake of urinating on the tracks. The liquid hit the juiced-up rails and the electricity killed him.

The vibration issue will likely lead the city to announce that the MTC urgently needs new trains. I'd love to see newer, more comfortable metro cars with all the modern amenities. But it's not necessary. The metros currently run at a top speed of 72 kilometres an hour, much faster than most other subway systems. If they slowed the train by around 15 kilometres an hour on the green line, vibrations would be reduced to acceptable levels. As an occasional rider, I'd like to see the money saved put into carpets and relaxing furniture and air conditioning on the metro cars. The day of the get-'em-out fast-food-court furniture is pretty over.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca