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The ties that crumble: Commuter-rail slowdowns south of the city
By adamg on Tue, 09/22/2009 - 3:24pm
CommonWealth Unbound reports the latest problem related to crumbling concrete ties on MBTA commuter lines out of South Station: Trains on the Kingston Line had speeds reduced from 70 to 30 m.p.h. because of "an increasing number of broken, cracked, and crumbling concrete ties that present a potential danger if they are not replaced or reinforced."
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Comments
Wonder how many new concrete ties
$500,000 would buy? After all, new station maps are nice, but the current maps won't potentially wreck a train if they're not replaced.
What? Potential passengers
What? Potential passengers need to know where the trains are going in order to ride them. No ridership means no trains!
The failed ties need fixing in addition to, not instead of, updating the maps.
OK, but a slightly outdated system map is unlikely to
generate lawsuits. Should an accident occur because of faulty concrete ties (and let us all hope that DOESN'T happen), it would be a different matter.
And yes, I agree that the T should both provide new maps and replace the defective concrete ties. However, in this era of limited budgets, I would hope that replacing the ties would take priority over updating the maps.