Loud boom rattles Boylston Street, shuts Green Line, but no fire, no smoke, no injuries reported

By adamg on Fri, 05/17/2013 - 9:20pm

BFD response to mystery boom. Photo by Victoria Bedford.

Around 8:50 p.m., Boston firefighters and Transit Police rushed to the area of Arlington and Boylston streets after several people reported hearing a loud explosion. Cara Terez, sitting on the Rattlesnake roof deck, tweeted:

Loud LOUD explosion.

As a precaution, the T shut Green Line service as firefighters looked around on the street and in the station for the source of the boom, but they found nothing, an inbound Green Line driver reported the tunnel between Copley and Arlington was fine and service started up about 10 minutes later.

Brian D'Amico tweets police speculate a tour bus may have had an engine backfire or two.

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Comments

Arlington St station around 5pm

By anon on Fri, 05/17/2013 - 11:56pm.

Got off an inbound train. VERY STRONG burning smell, like an electrical fire.

Nah, that's just the

By Gattca on Sat, 05/18/2013 - 12:37am.

Nah, that's just the greenline.

Two LOUD bangs and smoke in

By anon on Sat, 05/18/2013 - 12:24am.

Two LOUD bangs and smoke in Arlington Station, but nothing found.

NStar problems again?

By Ron Newman on Sat, 05/18/2013 - 5:55am.

My sympathies to anyone who had to deal with this. It's about the worst possible place in Boston right now to be dealing with mystery explosions.

That said, NStar has been having problems in Back Bay for years. Have all nearby manhole covers been accounted for?

Tremont

By anon² on Sat, 05/18/2013 - 11:10am.

had it's lights out, although from the picture I'm unsure if it was the section closes to Arlington.

I used to work with people

By anon on Sat, 05/18/2013 - 11:50pm.

I used to work with people who knew about the electrical grid in downtown. According to them, it's just about being held together with duct tape. Years of disinvestment combined with the increased loads put on the neighborhood by the influx of new residential construction, is going to cause a lot more of this.