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Woman falls onto tracks at Central just as train is pulling into station; track fire also complicated Red Line commute
By adamg on Thu, 07/12/2018 - 7:42am
Shortly before 7:30 a.m., Cambridge firefighters rushed to the Central Square Red Line stop to rescue a woman who'd fallen on the outbound tracks just as a train was pulling into the station.
The Cambridge Fire Department reports power was shut off and service halted in both directions as firefighters worked to extricate the person.
WBZ reports firefighters were able to get her out after about five minutes and get her to the hospital.
Power was restored around 7:50 a.m., but by then massive delays had built up along the Red Line as passengers waited at stations for promised shuttle buses that didn't always come.
The Central Square rescue came about 20 minutes after a track fire near JFK/UMass that caused lesser delays - although it is continuing to cause residual delays on the commuter-rail lines that also run through JFK/UMass.
@MBTA @universalhub people waiting Waiting waiting for shuttle buses as trains between park street and Harvard are cut down for a medical emergency. pic.twitter.com/uH1Yyv1XJt
— Ziggy (@ZigZagGiant) July 12, 2018
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Comments
Mind the gap!
.
Turns out she fell in front of the train
And got really lucky.
Rode the F Line yesterday
Here in SF and am amazed at how well they ran for their age and the driver told me there are people who make a habit of cleaning the cars themselves.
Fucking California. You’d think someone would come out here from the T to show these limp wristed pussies how to properly rob and fuck up a transit system.
Important difference
They don't have the same kind of winter there. Cars last a lot longer, too. Their older equipment didn't run for years in a corrosively sulfurous acid rain environment, either - that was a northeast problem.
You’re kidding, right?
The weather being the chief reason why citizens here actually take care of the ancient transit system and don’t treat it with the apathy that MA residents have towards a bunch of overpaid hacks who could care less about the riders suffering as long as the Carmen’s Union has their backs? And I’m no climatologist, but is there not a lot of salty air out here next to the Bay?
Or am I wrong?
salty air vs acid rain?
salty air vs acid rain?
Boston has salty air, too
Boston also adds road salt to that (think green line here and anywhere trains run along highway rights of way). Boston also had decades of sulfuric acid attack - up through the 1990s when the Clean Air Act Amendments required that scrubbers be added to coal and oil-fired power plants due to the acid rain problem.
SFO didn't have acid rain on their train cars, and doesn't aggressively salt its roads. The salt air issue is very similar - doesn't vary.
If you think that California maintains things well, LOL. They had Prop 13 before MA had Plop Stupid and a Half. CA did a spectacularly horrible job of their roads in the 70s and 80s, and were borrowing equipment and crews from Oregon when it all hit the fan.
Think cold, not salt. Winter is a whole different thing.
Mark Twain's views on summer in SF notwithstanding.
There are ways to make your point ...
Without resorting to homophobic and misogynistic insults.
SF
Yes but if you ask any resident of San Francisco.. they will have some choice words for you about MUNI. Its really not as good as it seems.. it just LOOKS good. Its rotten on the inside.
I wonder if the T will notice...
I wonder if the T will notice that it has a systemic problem with "track" (really: trash) fires that other agencies don't seem to have.
Probably not. "We've always had fires!"
The trash fires are friendly
The trash fires are friendly reminders that Charlie Baker cut the MBTA janitorial budget.
maybe
its just time to budget for platform edge doors (and fully automated trains).
Please no
Before spending millions on a fairly uncommon problem, put the money towards basic maintenance. If the trains were more reliable, the platforms would overcrowd as often.
while i agree we need to fix
while i agree we need to fix the T on the whole, i would love it if we could have a system with a dedicated boarding platform with doors and a dedicated deboarding platform, similar to what they have at a bunch of airports.
Increase in Incidents?
It seems to me that there has been an inordinate increase in subway incidents in the last 10-15 years. I don't know if this is attributed to the immediate nature of social media and its accessibility, or not. Anytime in the last when someone has fallen onto the tracks it has been covered in news media, but to me there seems to have been an increase in these events in recent times. I don't know what to attribute this to.
Barriers cannot go in until all new subway cars are in place with a whole new fleet so that all door measurements and spacing is the same so we are at least 2 years off on that easily. That said, are we trying to fix people that are being careless, drunk, or self-absorbed in their cell phones?
The two recent incidents of people getting legs stuck in the gap is also an inordinate number. Yes, there were injuries but what is the follow-up story? Legitimate accident? Carelessness? Insurance fraud? Beyond the initial report we simply do not know.
There has also been an uptick in suicide by train (reported in Boston Globe one year ago) with the MBTA establishing a task force to look into this situation.
So before we go forward with platform barriers we need to ask ourselves if that is the solution needed. Plenty of rail systems do not have barriers (worldwide) and much fewer accidents. Is this a situation of better education of the user public? Are we stepping beyond reason to fix "stupid." Thousands of people ride all kinds of trains daily and these things never happen to them.
Increase in incidents or you just hear about them more?
I mean, 15 years ago, there was no Twitter. And even with more reporters than they have now, the local media never reported on every single incidents. It's the same as with trucks storrowing - are there really more incidents, or just more public reports?
well
even if it is careless drunk suicide, etc. the rest of us benefit from that not happening, plus fewer trash fires.
try to fix stupid is actually useful in this case
Need uniform Red Line equipment to have platform doors
Right now, older Red Line cars have three doors while newer ones have four.
service
We need service that runs before we can have doors. What good are doors if trains don't come? ;-)
if
the trains don't come because a trash fire or someone fell in front, then lots of good
weak
This argument is weak. US Transit systems do not have them, and we are doing OK. I get it, its a safety thing but it is not required yet.. but we have other Capex projects that need to be taken care of before we do this.