That this same thing happened to me (only the stops were Charles, Park, and Downtown Crossing) and I was trying to remember when. Yes, the 1990s. I don't recall intercoms. Someone just pulled the emergency brake, and that got people's attention and our freedom.
It was a protest song against exit fees (similar to Washington DC). They wanted to change the fee structure so the MTA fee changed depending on where you got on and where you got off. Charlie didn't have enough money to get off the train. People were not happy - I know in DC, I've overpaid just to not be bothered with figuring out the fee structure.
Well Baker is getting ready for another fare increase, Im sure that will fix everything. No toll or gas tax increases, or even, gasp, adding tolls to 93 or 95 the way NH does. Just keep punishing the transit users Baker, thatll teach them. If you think traffic is bad now, wait for another fare increase or two and 4 more years of Baker style destruction of the T.
Do you know what would put is in a place where the trains would not have malfunctions? I’ll give you a hint. It’s a purchase Deval Patrick waited until late in his second term to okay and rhymes with “buy some new rains.”
But I imagine that by 2022, when such things are happening less, you will be singing Baker’s praises, no?
MA House: 125 Democrats, 35 Republicans
MA Senate: 36 Democrats, 4 Republicans
I get quite tired of all of this being laid on Baker in all these moronic Democrats in MA posts I see on various social media.
The Democrats could easy override him like they override Governor Florida Resident in Maine. It is a FAILURE of DEMOCRATIC leadership that has caused this problem - DeLeo too busy grifting and grafting, and Stan "Can't subsidize Boston while I try to keep my spouse in line" Rosenberg bear a huge responsibility for this, as does the new Senate President Chandler for not doing shit now that she has the gavel to do it.
The state increased the gas tax (it's actually a user fee, not a tax) a few years ago. They tried to slip something in to allow unelected bureaucrats to increase it in perpetuity, but that was later removed.
The tolls have been increased, both directly and indirectly: The Tobin bridge was switched to an electronic system, which supposedly will save money on administrative costs (so an $n toll yields more revenue now than it used to), plus they added surcharges larger than the toll itself for anyone who doesn't use the electronic tracking devices. The electronic-only tolls are supposed to be expanded to other toll roads.
The State can't just stick new tollbooths on existing Interstates; it's against Federal regulations for such roads. The existing tolls on Interstates were put in to fund their construction (most of which were supposed to be removed when the State paid off the bonds, which they - predictably - reneged on).
It's also outright unconstitutional to put tolls up right at the NH border for the purpose of tolling incoming commuters, as some have suggested; this would be a direct violation of the "interstate commerce" clause that bars states from establishing tolls/tariffs/taxes for people crossing state borders.
I don't disagree that the gas tax (again, actually a user fee) should be raised to make the roads pay for themselves. The nationwide average right now is something like 67% (that is, a third of the costs are borne by taxes). But at the same time, the transit system should pay for itself, too. The "fare recovery rate" for transit systems, everywhere, is in general worse than the gas tax "recovery rate"; the MBTA's fare recovery rate is about half currently (meaning the other half of the MBTA is covered by taxes).
MBTA employees need a slap upside the face . WAKE UP. MBTA systems need to be inspected NOW, not in 2019. MBTA and the the State need to stop making statistical charts and gathering data on their computers and get off their ass and fix the subway system NOW. Something terrible will happen if action isn't taken NOW.
those guys with the flashlights on the platform are supposed to be checking the doors for opening and closing - the fact that they didn't notice for 4 stops is ridiculous. they're broken and old because of the gov't but this would have been a stuck train at X station story if the guys ON THE TRAIN had been doing their jobs.
You know what? They need to make those, too, so they can figure out what they can and can't fix with the nothingburger they get from DEMOCRATICALLY DOMINATED legislature.
Consider that the doors have to be first "activated" from a control panel located in one of the operator compartments. Only one panel can be in control of the doors at one time. The doors are then opened and closed from that control panel.
This is why there is a slight delay at station end points when a train will change directions. The operator has deactivated the control panel so another MBTA worker can enter the far end of the train to activate from the other end and open the doors. That way the train is ready to go. When there is no extra T worker, you go through the exercise of the doors closing and re-opening a few minutes later after the operator has walked to the other end of the train.
The circuit that handles the doors travels through the train couplings which is a possible failure point. Each car has a doors 'on' or 'off' control point for each side and each door can be manually shut and locked down (which is why some doors only have one half working).
Each car has exterior pilot lights that show the doors are open or closed, but if the system through the doors were open (but not in reality) that could have been a false positive.
At the far end of each platform there is a closed circuit TV screen that allows the operator to view the length of the train if they cannot see the length of the train from the operator's compartment. This is especially helpful at stations that are slightly curved, or when there are people blocking view by standing on the yellow line at the edge of the platform. Operators are encouraged to use this system.
While all of these are set up assure safety, they also are multiple points fo failure either for mechanical error, electronics failure. or operator error.
In any event, there is a pull cord at the end of each car that you can pull to stop the train and then exit through the door to the next car.
I've often wondered when it's appropriate to pull the emergency brake. I suppose if you can't reach the operator, something might be seriously wrong, so it would make sense to do it... but it's not as clear cut as something like "someone is caught in the door and is about to be dragged to death".
Strictly in terms of convenience, there's an interesting balance here. If you pull the brake, the people who have missed their stop are no longer at risk of going all the way to the very end of the line. However, the people who *do* want to go farther are now going to have to wait for the train to be put back in service, which I understand can take a while.
MBTA bus operators are required to do a circle check before accepting their bus at the garage or another operator and hitting the street. Essentially, you are given about ten minutes to visually inspect the exterior and interior, and do some quick tests of apparatus (i.e. wheelchair lift, windshield wipers, etc.); if there's anything that would prevent the bus from being street-worthy, the operator turns in the filled-out defect card and gets another bus. There's a similar routine for Green Line motorfolk as well.
So, eh, do we need to start doing this for the rapid transit lines?!?!
Ought motorfolk to test the PA and intercoms before leaving terminals and await the Inspector's "Can you hear me now?" before rolling out? Recycle the doors a few times to make they all are being perfectly doory? [A genuine question I pose for discussion.]
On the one hand: I genuinely trust the shop foremen and yardmasters would only allow equipment actually fit for service to leave the yard.
On the other hand: As a foreman do you keep several cars -- or entire train sets -- in shop solely because of faulty intercoms? Now you are short several trains for the rush hours and the riding public is (justifiably) bullshit because the usual rolling fifteen minute gaps in service hath jumped to a half hour. Brian Shitsleeve, Chuck's Fucked Management Control Board and Stephanie "Oh-No-What-Is-You-Doin'" Pollack congratulate each other with political and ideological handjobs after announcing, almost gleefully, things like "reduced headcount" and "strengthened internal cost controls" with a coy smugness that resounds throughout the MBTA service area from Newburyport to Fields Corner to Attleboro. Reduced headcount oft times translates to 25- and 30-year folk working in maintenance and operations retiring without the next generation being immediately hired (at least in adequate numbers) to replace them. A patchwork pattern of deferred maintence dating back to when Edward Dana himself was, granted retired, but actually still alive and a new, larger Red/Orange Line due in the mail any year now means -- if anything -- the Authority ought to have a larger* maintenance staff. Similar consideration for operations: you want more people to ride your service? Well, you're gonna need more service to accomodate them all.
This chain-reaction door fault, the emergency intercoms which do not actually work during emergencies, and the oblique fact that we now have six-car rush hour trains capable of carrying ~1,000 pax during crush rush hours under the control and supervision of a single motorman all belie the intersecting failures of several political generations.
I am proudly OFD and grew up on the Red Line. I have been riding it for nearly thirty years. The Red Line turns 106 in March: What a goddamn tragic and disgraceful fall from glory.
Comments
That darned flux capaciter
The entire red line seems to have been sent back to the early 1990s.
I was just about to comment
That this same thing happened to me (only the stops were Charles, Park, and Downtown Crossing) and I was trying to remember when. Yes, the 1990s. I don't recall intercoms. Someone just pulled the emergency brake, and that got people's attention and our freedom.
They tried that
but it took TWO people to make the emergency brake work (per Glob article)
Didn't this happen to Charlie?
Did he ever return?
No, he never returned and his fate is still unlearned.
He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston.
He's a man who'll never return.
This wouldn't have happened
This wouldn't have happened if I'd been elected.
The trains were maintained back then
It was a protest song against exit fees (similar to Washington DC). They wanted to change the fee structure so the MTA fee changed depending on where you got on and where you got off. Charlie didn't have enough money to get off the train. People were not happy - I know in DC, I've overpaid just to not be bothered with figuring out the fee structure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.T.A._(song)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Jw_v3F_Q0
So the staff are clearly not paying attention
If they don’t even notice the doors stay closed and people are not getting on or off.
Well Baker is getting ready
Well Baker is getting ready for another fare increase, Im sure that will fix everything. No toll or gas tax increases, or even, gasp, adding tolls to 93 or 95 the way NH does. Just keep punishing the transit users Baker, thatll teach them. If you think traffic is bad now, wait for another fare increase or two and 4 more years of Baker style destruction of the T.
Your comment deserves 100
Your comment deserves 100 thumbs up.
You know what would help?
Do you know what would put is in a place where the trains would not have malfunctions? I’ll give you a hint. It’s a purchase Deval Patrick waited until late in his second term to okay and rhymes with “buy some new rains.”
But I imagine that by 2022, when such things are happening less, you will be singing Baker’s praises, no?
OK, Baker
Given that it takes at least 10 years to order and deliver trains, has Gov. Baker started the process for replacing the next batch?
The T is the result of collective failure of one Governor after another. Baker has kicked the can down the tracks just like everyone else.
He also teed up the can back in the 90s
as part of Weld's administration. The T ran great back then - nothing stopped the T!
Baker gets lots of help
MA House: 125 Democrats, 35 Republicans
MA Senate: 36 Democrats, 4 Republicans
I get quite tired of all of this being laid on Baker in all these moronic Democrats in MA posts I see on various social media.
The Democrats could easy override him like they override Governor Florida Resident in Maine. It is a FAILURE of DEMOCRATIC leadership that has caused this problem - DeLeo too busy grifting and grafting, and Stan "Can't subsidize Boston while I try to keep my spouse in line" Rosenberg bear a huge responsibility for this, as does the new Senate President Chandler for not doing shit now that she has the gavel to do it.
The state increased the gas
The state increased the gas tax (it's actually a user fee, not a tax) a few years ago. They tried to slip something in to allow unelected bureaucrats to increase it in perpetuity, but that was later removed.
The tolls have been increased, both directly and indirectly: The Tobin bridge was switched to an electronic system, which supposedly will save money on administrative costs (so an $n toll yields more revenue now than it used to), plus they added surcharges larger than the toll itself for anyone who doesn't use the electronic tracking devices. The electronic-only tolls are supposed to be expanded to other toll roads.
The State can't just stick new tollbooths on existing Interstates; it's against Federal regulations for such roads. The existing tolls on Interstates were put in to fund their construction (most of which were supposed to be removed when the State paid off the bonds, which they - predictably - reneged on).
It's also outright unconstitutional to put tolls up right at the NH border for the purpose of tolling incoming commuters, as some have suggested; this would be a direct violation of the "interstate commerce" clause that bars states from establishing tolls/tariffs/taxes for people crossing state borders.
I don't disagree that the gas tax (again, actually a user fee) should be raised to make the roads pay for themselves. The nationwide average right now is something like 67% (that is, a third of the costs are borne by taxes). But at the same time, the transit system should pay for itself, too. The "fare recovery rate" for transit systems, everywhere, is in general worse than the gas tax "recovery rate"; the MBTA's fare recovery rate is about half currently (meaning the other half of the MBTA is covered by taxes).
MBTA employees need a slap
MBTA employees need a slap upside the face . WAKE UP. MBTA systems need to be inspected NOW, not in 2019. MBTA and the the State need to stop making statistical charts and gathering data on their computers and get off their ass and fix the subway system NOW. Something terrible will happen if action isn't taken NOW.
It is not the MBTA employees that need a slap upside the face.
It is our governor and our legislature who need a collective slap.
Don't worry
I'm sure they're all ready to put on very serious frowns and demand answers to some tough questions when the inevitable fatal accident occurs.
Thoughts and prayers
Oh wait, wrong kinda accident.
Why can't it be both?
n/t
Seriously
those guys with the flashlights on the platform are supposed to be checking the doors for opening and closing - the fact that they didn't notice for 4 stops is ridiculous. they're broken and old because of the gov't but this would have been a stuck train at X station story if the guys ON THE TRAIN had been doing their jobs.
It is time to stop playing
It is time to stop playing the blame game NOW and fix the fucking fucked up train NOW.
The system needs to be
The system needs to be "inspected" now? Aren't we a little past that?
"...Yup, it's broken."
There's my expert analysis, and I didn't even charge the state $10M for it.
Statistical charts
You know what? They need to make those, too, so they can figure out what they can and can't fix with the nothingburger they get from DEMOCRATICALLY DOMINATED legislature.
Don’t worry it will be that
Don’t worry it will be that much better if everyone takes the T instead of Uber and Lyft since that study finds Uber and lift are the devil.
Odd circumstances
Odd this happened but anything is possible.
Consider that the doors have to be first "activated" from a control panel located in one of the operator compartments. Only one panel can be in control of the doors at one time. The doors are then opened and closed from that control panel.
This is why there is a slight delay at station end points when a train will change directions. The operator has deactivated the control panel so another MBTA worker can enter the far end of the train to activate from the other end and open the doors. That way the train is ready to go. When there is no extra T worker, you go through the exercise of the doors closing and re-opening a few minutes later after the operator has walked to the other end of the train.
The circuit that handles the doors travels through the train couplings which is a possible failure point. Each car has a doors 'on' or 'off' control point for each side and each door can be manually shut and locked down (which is why some doors only have one half working).
Each car has exterior pilot lights that show the doors are open or closed, but if the system through the doors were open (but not in reality) that could have been a false positive.
At the far end of each platform there is a closed circuit TV screen that allows the operator to view the length of the train if they cannot see the length of the train from the operator's compartment. This is especially helpful at stations that are slightly curved, or when there are people blocking view by standing on the yellow line at the edge of the platform. Operators are encouraged to use this system.
While all of these are set up assure safety, they also are multiple points fo failure either for mechanical error, electronics failure. or operator error.
In any event, there is a pull cord at the end of each car that you can pull to stop the train and then exit through the door to the next car.
When is the emergency brake appropriate?
I've often wondered when it's appropriate to pull the emergency brake. I suppose if you can't reach the operator, something might be seriously wrong, so it would make sense to do it... but it's not as clear cut as something like "someone is caught in the door and is about to be dragged to death".
Strictly in terms of convenience, there's an interesting balance here. If you pull the brake, the people who have missed their stop are no longer at risk of going all the way to the very end of the line. However, the people who *do* want to go farther are now going to have to wait for the train to be put back in service, which I understand can take a while.
Cocoanut Grove on the T
As I said on Twitter, this is precisely how my feared Cocoanut Grove on the T goes down.
You can kick the windows out
Did you know that?
Now you do.
Of Circle Checks And Circle Jerks...
MBTA bus operators are required to do a circle check before accepting their bus at the garage or another operator and hitting the street. Essentially, you are given about ten minutes to visually inspect the exterior and interior, and do some quick tests of apparatus (i.e. wheelchair lift, windshield wipers, etc.); if there's anything that would prevent the bus from being street-worthy, the operator turns in the filled-out defect card and gets another bus. There's a similar routine for Green Line motorfolk as well.
So, eh, do we need to start doing this for the rapid transit lines?!?!
Ought motorfolk to test the PA and intercoms before leaving terminals and await the Inspector's "Can you hear me now?" before rolling out? Recycle the doors a few times to make they all are being perfectly doory? [A genuine question I pose for discussion.]
On the one hand: I genuinely trust the shop foremen and yardmasters would only allow equipment actually fit for service to leave the yard.
On the other hand: As a foreman do you keep several cars -- or entire train sets -- in shop solely because of faulty intercoms? Now you are short several trains for the rush hours and the riding public is (justifiably) bullshit because the usual rolling fifteen minute gaps in service hath jumped to a half hour. Brian Shitsleeve, Chuck's Fucked Management Control Board and Stephanie "Oh-No-What-Is-You-Doin'" Pollack congratulate each other with political and ideological handjobs after announcing, almost gleefully, things like "reduced headcount" and "strengthened internal cost controls" with a coy smugness that resounds throughout the MBTA service area from Newburyport to Fields Corner to Attleboro. Reduced headcount oft times translates to 25- and 30-year folk working in maintenance and operations retiring without the next generation being immediately hired (at least in adequate numbers) to replace them. A patchwork pattern of deferred maintence dating back to when Edward Dana himself was, granted retired, but actually still alive and a new, larger Red/Orange Line due in the mail any year now means -- if anything -- the Authority ought to have a larger* maintenance staff. Similar consideration for operations: you want more people to ride your service? Well, you're gonna need more service to accomodate them all.
This chain-reaction door fault, the emergency intercoms which do not actually work during emergencies, and the oblique fact that we now have six-car rush hour trains capable of carrying ~1,000 pax during crush rush hours under the control and supervision of a single motorman all belie the intersecting failures of several political generations.
I am proudly OFD and grew up on the Red Line. I have been riding it for nearly thirty years. The Red Line turns 106 in March: What a goddamn tragic and disgraceful fall from glory.
//END RANT//