Return of signal woes means Braintree trains went slow; riders' tempers about to blow

People may be interested in knowing that some train failures are sometimes caused by the Cineston Controller not working right, or its associated safety systems go fubar, but to the advantage of safety.

Now... to understand the system, the brakes have two air lines. One is for the emergency brake and one for the service brake that stops the trains at the platforms. The emergency brake has a spring-loaded mechanism so if air pressure is lost to the train, it will also be lost to the emergency brake lines which holds the brakes open. When that happens the springs pull the brake shoes into the wheels and the train stops.

If air is lost to the emergency brake for any reason, the control stand has to be shut off and air pressure rebuilt to the emergency brake system. This pulls the brake shoes away from the wheels and you can go. The service brake over-rides the air in the emergency brake for general operation of the train for stopping at platforms. It's a very well-thought safety system.

Not all that long ago I was sitting next to a control cab on the Orange line and the shade was up and could see the air gauges. We pulled in to North Station and stopped as usual. I was able to watch the air pressure gauge which shows the pressure in the emergency brake, and in the service brake. When we went to pull out you could feel the train start, but the air in the emergency brake was lost. The train went into emergency and killed power. The operator reset the brakes and it pumped up OK. He started to power the train and emergency air was lost again. We repeated this 3 times before it finally took and we were able to go. I was certain we were DOA.

This suggests that the "dead man" emergency linkage in the Cineston was not working right and it thought that the operator was letting go of the throttle handle. It may have been something else, but in any event he had to reset the train 3 times before we got going. This happened again 2 stations up, but eventually we got to Forest Hills.

Now, one might think that the train with a known issue would be taken out of service. Not so. This train reversed ends and departed with passengers headed for Oak Grove. Now, of course running the other way you have a different Cineston Controller, but when you reverse at Oak Grove you have the bad one again. Of course they could have taken it out of service at Wellington but there is no way to tell.

Keep in mind the Orange Line trains pre-date the current subway and were in service several years on the "EL" and date back to about 1980 making them about 35 years old on average.

Before we rant about what is right and wrong, lets remember that these operators are under pressure to make these trains work, and no new ones will arrive until sometime in 2018-2019, and that's the date range for the first units to arrive, be tested, and then have any bugs flushed out. That can take from weeks to months. If the operators took every train out of service or refused to operate ones with known flaws, nothing would be running, or we'd be at the service levels of the post-2015 winter storms again.

After reading those two linked articles I have to wonder who made the decision to put the bypass switch on the outside of the train when the trains were rebuilt in the mid-80s? That places these operators in dangerous territory at the 3rd rail, and other exposed parts that carry high-voltage. The second article is most revealing, or so I feel.