Some real major voyages of the damned: Signal woes leave Worcester Line riders slammed
Some passengers on the Worcester Line sat in stalled trains for up to three hours tonight.
5:50pm Worcester local train remains stopped between Lansdowne and Boston landing. Guaranteed delays on this track.
CC @universalhub— Roman Lilligren (@RSLphotography) January 7, 2020
The entire line is stopped. The conductors on my train (522 inbound sitting outside Ashland) said the entire signal and switch system has lost power.
— Brian (@btmitch81) January 8, 2020
Update: Worcester Train 524 (6:05 pm from Worcester) is now operating about two and a half hours behind schedule between Southborough and South Station due to an ongoing signal issue.
— MBTA Commuter Rail (@MBTA_CR) January 8, 2020
Ad:
Comments
After freezing for nearly an
After freezing for nearly an hour at Boston Landing waiting for a 6:30 train, I was able to board the 5:50 departure from S. Station at about 7:25. Another hour and we got to the W. Natick bottleneck.
I was mostly glad to not freeze and to get home before nine. But why a failure of this magnitude should happen without an accident or malicious damage causing it is really disappointing.
Twitter Dave gave some explanation
https://mobile.twitter.com/framwormbta/status/1214881763991969792?s=21
They're replacing the signaling on the Worcester line for Positive Train Control but I haven't seen any info on whether it's the old or the new system that failed.
It's impressive that a line
It's impressive that a line that runs only 4 trains per hour during the 5 pm hour, and 2 trains per hour for the rest of rush hour, somehow generates 3 hour delays when they have to give manual permission to pass broken signals.