As we all know by now, on Friday night a Metro train played host to mass fisticuffs along the green- and yellow-line tracks. The Post tells us that the rolling donnybrook involved as many as 70 players, many of them apparently teenagers, and sent five people to the hospital and another three to the back of a police cruiser.

The reports I've seen all note that the brawl started at Gallery Place, continued incredibly within the rail cars, and spilled out onto the platform at L'Enfant Plaza. What I haven't seen mentioned is the salient fact that there is, indeed, one stop between those two stations: Archives-Navy Memorial. This raises some fascinating questions.

For instance, did any of the brawlers decide to hop out at Archives, figuring they'd had enough, and bid good riddance to the fight? Or did they play it like a Mel Brooks movie, briefly halting the fight out of courtesy for the bystanders exiting at Archives, then resuming their chaos once the doors closed?

And how about the pedestrians on the Archives platform? The wait for a train can be up to 15 minutes on a Friday night. I'd be pretty annoyed if mine finally arrived and there was a 70-man melee on board. Do you check the arrival time for the next train and weigh your options? Do you actually consider boarding one of the riot-free cars before you?

Of course, there are more serious questions to ask considering this fight lasted for two stops. Such as, how is it that this train wasn't grounded immediately at Archives? How long could a brawl actually go on with the driver and Metro police unaware? And should the transit cops have a stronger presence on Metro platforms and in the cars themselves?