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Manholes explode in Charles Circle; Red Line is bypassing Charles/MGH
By adamg on Tue, 03/24/2020 - 3:28pm
Melissa reports that shortly after 3 p.m., a manhole in Cambridge Street between the Charles/MGH Red Line station and MGH itself exploded.
At least one other manhole also blew up.
The MBTA evacuated the station and then halted service on both side of the Red Line as a precaution. The T scrounged up some buses to run shuttles between Park and Kendall, although BFD gave its OK to run trains through Charles/MGH, just without stopping.
Black-smoke belcher. Photo by Lee Dykxhoorn:
The Liberty Hotel lost power.
Lindsey O'Donnell Welch reported:
Just heard the explosions from Revere St.... saw smoke near MGH.
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Comments
Ah
That's no good
Is "not scrounging up buses" a typo?
or is the T not getting alternative transportation?
Yeah, stupid typo, sorry
Should have read "now scrounging up."
That's a big typo
Because sometimes the T doesn't even bother to provide replacement buses anymore. Once recently when the Green Line was down at Lechmere I was told by an employee "it's only a 15 minute walk to North Station, you're lucky it's a nice day". I'm absolutely not kidding. Another time the Blue Line inbound was out at Maverick and we were told to take the train one stop back to Airport and take the Silver Line. You ever try to take the Silver Line from Airport to South Station or wherever the heck it goes from Airport? It takes hours and hours and hours. Considering I was planning to take the Blue Line one stop from Maverick to Aquarium which should be a three minute trip it was very frustrating. You can't even walk that one unless you can walk on water.
It's not that they don't
It's not that they don't bother to run buses. The problem is there aren't dozens of spare buses and drivers waiting right around the block from your station. The buses are on their regular routes, full of passengers, stuck in traffic, far away from the multiple stations where you and thousands of other people are stuck.
Even if buses are available, it takes a lot of them to carry one trainload of people. And then the trip takes way longer than the train would. That's why the trains exist in the first place.
If they tell you it's a 15 minute walk to another line, they're doing you a favor.
Considering how difficult
Considering how difficult things have been lately, I'm glad that the MBTA is making an effort to keep things consistent. I feel a little comforted to know that the T is messed up even when I'm not there to be inconvenienced by it.
I have tons of love for the T, but I love complaining about it even more!
I don't think it is the T's
I don't think it is the T's manhole though.
Mother Nature
She’s such a card. You go high, she goes low. “You think it’s all plagues and pandemics? How about an exploding manhole? Ha! Bet you didn’t expect that one!”
Tragedy is at its best when leavened with a little farce. In King Lear, the Fool gets some of the best lines.
Not seeing it
I can't see how exploding manholes are acts of Nature.
The whole goddam machinery
Everything that happens is an act of Nature. The Ideal Gas Law is a law of Nature. We like to think we're outside of Nature, but that's nonsense. This is especially obvious when Nature treats us to random shit like exploding manholes.
Robert Frost once pointed out that when the Lake Poets talked about Nature, they meant Pretty Scenery, but when Lucretius talked about it, he meant The Whole Goddam Machinery.
Oookaaay
....
Manhole fires
Mgh didn't even notify some workers what was going on until last min and we was force to stay inside and didnt even tell us when it was alright to leave..
Fiber cable severed
This explosion took out a Lightower/Crown Castle fiber optic trunk that provided internet service to many Boston metro residents. Here in Cambridge we are still down over a day later, and I'm told the utility companies are only starting to assess the damage.