Stuck on a train with no lights just sitting in Worcester in the rain
Tonight's commuter-rail tale of woe comes from Jennifer Emmaline, who thought her train from Worcester to Boston would leave at 7:50 p.m., only to learn that a) An Amtrak train that got to Union Station, looked around and decided that was as good a place as any to just die and b) The solution turned out to be to connect that train to her train, which would then try to pull it all the way to South Station.
She provided status updates, starting with the first notice from Keolis that the train was late, due to the Amtrak corpse:
8:24 p.m. many passengers waiting in Worcester, our sanity depends on leaving soon.
8:41 p.m. Amtrak train now in Worcester- commuter rail immediately behind- as if pushing?
8:42 p.m. we walked a ways to board commuter rail, now we're moving.
8:44 p.m. no announcements - were just chilling in commuter rail behind the Amtrak train.
8:46 p.m. we only moved a few yards. Now we're just enjoying the stillness.
8:47 p.m. they just turned off the lights. No explanation from noone.
8:51 p.m. we were directed to commuter rail behind Amtrak train. I'm starving.
9:02 p.m. so Worcester passengers for 750 train now on board the delayed 830 train. But hey, we're moving!
9:02 p.m. electricity back on. Conductor sez we are tugging Amtrak train back to Boston.
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Comments
I think I figured out the details
Whole story posted here on my blog:
http://dbperry.weebly.com/blog/mbta-rescues-amtrak
So that big beautifully
So that big beautifully-renovated station in Worcester has one platform? Just one. Amazing.
At the moment there is only
At the moment there is only one modern platform in use. It's all that's needed, when you only have one Amtrak train each way a day, and all commuter trains that make it that far terminate at Worcester. So there's no transfers to coordinate, no simultaneous departures, and no need for any more than 1 platform for regular service.
With the present service levels the only time an additional platform would be useful at Worcester is in the event of some service disruption like this one, which doesn't occur all that often.
It's also worth noting that the T's 2nd busiest outlying station, Salem, which sees 650 more daily passengers than Worcester (8th busiest), also only has one platform. In an ideal world, a second platform would be nice, but fairly dense service schedules can be maintained with only one.
Salem also has only a single track
So a second platform there would serve no useful purpose.
I know you love to nitpick,
I know you love to nitpick, but that fact doesn't change my point at all.
I am without speech.
I am without speech. Speechless.
Why couldn't the Amtrak
Why couldn't the Amtrak passengers transfer to the MBTA train, instead of wasting everyone's time hooking the trains together? Yes, Amtrak would have to come up with another locomotive (or fix the broken one on-site) to get the empty train to Boston for its next trip, but that's an expected consequence of a breakdown.