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Fitchburg Line train hits somebody in Waltham

Transit Police report an outbound Fitchburg train hit and killed a man on the tracks at the Brandeis/Roberts train station around 6 p.m. Police say foul play is not suspected.

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The head of the MBTA safety department claims he was fired because he spoke out about safety violations, reports being changed and coverups. Until the Federal Authorities conduct an investigation wouldn't it make sense to make the State or Boston Police the lead investigators on all homicides that occur on the MBTA.

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The same thing happened at Newtonville last week! What is going on?!!?!

The story I heard about the Newton victim (and I heard this third hand so take it as you will), is that the guy was mad when the express train blew by without stopping (as an express train is wont to do), so he stepped onto the track, hand raised, to get the next train to stop.

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Not sure where you heard that one... It was a suicide, was on the phone with his parents or some family member when it happened. Stepped out in front of the local and was struck.

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Well, there you are. As I said, I heard it from a friend of a friend of someone who was there, so the info was sketchy. Where did you here it was a suicide? I've been searching for follow up news about what really happened, and so far, no luck....

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For years concerned people have been pointing out the suspect nature of the numerous deaths caused by MBTA trains and the bizarrely identical boilerplate reports by the MBTA Police that inevitably follow. And for just as long the apologists have parroted the MBTA to heap accusations on the victims and unconditionally exonerate the T. I wonder if the people who dismiss these deaths so callously with comments of "trespassing, so he deserved it" would be so quick to do so if the victim was their own family member. The next commuter rail contract certainly needs to have a clause with a substantial death fine written into it so that killing people is not incentivized. Who could really dare to object to that and still call themself human ?

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It's of using standard railroad nomenclature. For whatever reasons, "trespasser" is the default term for a person who is standing/sleeping/whatevering on train tracks.

But, you know, it's not like there are gangs of rogue commuter-rail trains roaming the streets looking for poor innocent people to hunt and kill. No doubt, some people have died through no fault of their own (what if crossing gates malfunctioned?). But people drive around crossing gates and do other really stupid things on train tracks all the time.

I can attest to the latter, right at the spot where the person died, because for two years I lived in a Brandeis dorm across those very tracks from the rest of the campus. And I and every other kid who lived there ALWAYS would run across the tracks and cross over the athletic fields on the way to class, no matter how many times the school would tell us not to and no matter how many times they patched the fence that somebody kept cutting open again, because it was a shortcut over walking down to the South Street crossing and up the hill. None of us got run down, and we tended to think the more immediate hazard was the shotputters who practiced just on the other side of the fence, but that doesn't mean it wasn't stupid and we weren't just incredibly lucky (it's not like we would, oh, check train schedules, or even be able to hear trains coming from Boston until they were pretty much right there).

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don't stand (cross, lay down on, play, walk) on the tracks. It is private property (hence trespassing), and the train cannot stop in time.

Kinda like the ridiculousness with the Cape's shark "problem." If you don't want to be in the vicinity of sharks, don't go above your waist in the ocean, even though you have a better chance being hit by an ice cream truck driving by the beach than being killed by a shark.

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don't stand (cross, lay down on, play, walk) on the tracks

So...how do people get to the train?

Many stations are accessed by surface-level crossings.

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