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OK, who's the wise guy
By roadman on Tue, 05/05/2015 - 8:06pm
that convinced the managers at Keolis that there was going to be snow in the forecast. Judging by the cluster that North Station became at the tail end of rush hour, it felt more like the bad old days of February than early May.
Began with the cancellation of the 5:55 Reading train, followed by a ten minute delay on the 5:55 Beverly train. Then the 5:50 Lowell train got into the act with a fifteen minute delay. Not to be outdone, the 6:20 Haverhill train (the one all the people dumped from the cancelled 5:55 Reading train were waiting for) posted a 20 minute delay. Then the 6:20 Fitchburg train said "hey, wait for me", and promptly decided to have a ten minute delay of its own.
In the middle of all this mess, Keolis was broadcasting announcements about the pending long-term weekend closures on the Fitchburg line, including the disclaimer "No alternate service will be provided."
Now, I've been a commuter rail loyalist for 25 years, and an MBTA loyalist for 35 years. However, even I'm getting sick and tired of this nonsense.
PS to Adam - Tried to post this story on my smartphone while at North Station. Gave up after the fourth time I was randomly dumped into ads for Uber and couldn't get out without totally deleting my entry. I respect that you need to pay your bills, but can't you do something to make it easier for people to post from mobile devices without having to endure such nonsense.
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Comments
The Universal Hub mobile version
looks good when using either Opera (not Opera Mini) or Chrome.
Grr, sorry about that!
Were these popup ads or was the screen redirected to the ads without you doing anything?
On Windows Phone, I
On Windows Phone, I frequently get what seems to be a transparent overlay on the ad, to where as soon as I tap on the screen to scroll, I get linked to the app store to download some game, usually the Star Wars one. I can't ever tell when it's going to happen but the pageload is done and nothing happens until I try to scroll the page.
Also some of the embedded videos autoplay in IE on Windows Phone, but I don't guess there's much you can do about that.
Sorry about that
I thought those were gone, will work to get those off.
They're Not All Gone, But The Zunes And Kins Pretty Much Are
Screen was redirected
to ads without my doing anything. FYI, I have an iPhone 5c, but pop ups are blocked.
Back to the original subject
A friend of mine caught 2030 (yes, one of the new engines) getting dragged back out of North Station late evening yesterday. I think they had multiple mechanical failures (yup - still happening), and even one of the "new" ones got in on the act.
From the sounds of the cancellations (the 17:55 to Reading is a regular victim) they still don't have enough units to go around to cover for multiple failures. There was a Keolis or MBTA plan to lease some additional used diesels to help cover, but they've apparently been placed in storage down in SE Mass. rather than sent to BET, so I don't know if they're ultimately coming or not.
All but one of the new engines (the HSP-46's) are either in state or en route, and one source online indicates that 21 are supposedly accepted and in service. Most of the active ones appear to be running south, not north, as expected.
The 5:50 Fitchburg was also
The 5:50 Fitchburg was also delayed a few minutes, because of an earlier failure. We had to walk past the dead set (pushed by a new locomotive) to the far end of the platform to catch the departing train.
Off Topic - but no idea where to ask
How does posts besides adamg work? I have been here for years, but I have no idea about how the "Post!" part of this website works. I have a general idea, but I never experimented with it - with amusing thought my test page may accidentally fill up the entire front page of UHub.
To my understanding, people aside adamg do write (like anonymous and roadman). Occasionally I find those posts via the recent comments or the topic box, but I can't actually find a page that displays all of them (clicking blogs in the top bar sends me to "bostonblogs.com" - meanwhile I know there is one if I navigate through one of those blog posts).
I presume people hosts in their own little blogs hosted via UHub like Blogspot, but Adamg occasionally front page if it particularly notable?
No
When you click on the Post! link at the top near your login name (upper left), it allows you to write a post. It's up to adam to 'allow' it to the main page. If he doesn't do that, the post is still searchable (and appears in the 'new comments' section on the right).. it just doesn't appear on the main page.
I think that's how that works.. Adam can/could correct me.
The Communists have Stuck UHub!
Secret Russian agents have infiltrated the UHub servers (hence a recent "emergency update" about 2 months ago). They have planted a virus to disrupt our busy lives, so that instead of doing things on our phones, we must travel home-which, added to the Communist sabotage of the trains that night, created a mass of people unable to post productively to UHub, wasting valuable time.
Adam, we're looking at you as a possible suspect >:D
Wrong again. The people unable to post to UHub
were apparently thwarted by a capitalist plot related to a) a company attempting to minimize their expenses by not properly maintaining and running trains, and b) another company forcing people to read advertising for private businesses instead of allowing them to post to an Internet blog.
Doesn't sound to me like Marx (Karl, not Groucho) would approve of either of those strategies.