Metrorail Car's Trial Run Lets Short Riders Get a Grip

But for riders such as Anne Herrmann, who is 85 and 4 feet 9, the handles are still too high. "I try to use those vertical poles, and I try to avoid real rush hour," she said. As the train pulled into King Street, she reached for a handle but missed by several inches. "No way," she said, as she got off the train.

Some rider advocates said Metro should test the handles in more cars. "Shorter riders shouldn't have to search for the one car in the whole Metrorail system that is equipped with these handles," said Jack Corbett, 6 feet 7, of MetroRiders.org.

The handles were installed on one of the new rail cars on the Green Line. Finding something to grab on to in those cars is especially tough, because they were designed to reduce crowding at doors, so floor-to-ceiling poles, the lifeline of the short, were removed.

People of below-average or even average height are left reaching for a seat back or an overhead bar, if anything at all.

"I always try not to use the overhead bar, because they're kind of uncomfortable, especially if you have a backpack or a shoulder strap of a purse on your shoulder," said Shelagh Bocoum, 5 feet 5, who commutes from Fort Totten to downtown Washington. Plus, she noted, "it's not fun to have people's underarms in your face."

Metro officials said they tried to make up for the lack of vertical poles by adding more seat-back-to-ceiling poles and a second row of ceiling bars. But riders said those are all hard to reach, especially in crowds.

So they rely on strategies honed over years of experience.

Iacomini goes first for the vertical poles on older trains. "It's like that game with the baseball bat, where you're trying to fit as many hands on the bat as possible, and here we are, these littler people, trying to put your hand on, and you look at these six-foot-tall people and you're thinking to yourself, 'Their hands have to go higher.' "

In the center of the car, if she reaches for a seat-back railing and misses, "you end up grabbing a woman's hair or a man's scarf," she said.

"What I try to do is get a hand on the windscreen," she said, referring to the panels that protrude from the doors, a spot where Metro officials don't want people to stand. "I bend my knees slightly and sway a little bit. It's a Zen moment. I become one with the car."

It's not so great being tall, either, some riders said.

Jeff Aron, 6 feet 5 1/4 , said he usually has to duck when he gets in and out of trains to avoid bumping his head against overhead bars. He's been riding the Red Line for 12 years, so he's used to the routine. "I'm aware of where I am and what I have to do," he said.

Staff writer Lena H. Sun is 5 feet 2.