MBTA slowdown ordered after state IDed track defects and T couldn't guarantee repairs had actually been done; some speed restrictions lifted

The MBTA began slowing down all its subway trains around 5:30 p.m. yesterday after state inspectors filed reports that they found track problems on one Red Line stretch this week and the T couldn't assure them that repairs had actually been made because of problems with paperwork and decided it needed to check all its tracks.

The T did not alert passengers to the slowdown until around 10 p.m. Interim T General Manager Jeff Gonneville said at a press conference this morning - which, like the T itself, was delayed - that when he got copies of the DPU reports, he had to make an instant decision to slow every train down first, then notify riders. "There are times we have to make decisions internally to insure [rider] safety first," he said.

"This decision was done out of an abundance of caution for [rider] safety and that is something right now we have to remain committed to," he said, adding the T's own inspectors have been inspecting tracks for problems, which he said could range from issued with "the spacing between rails" to "a slight twist in rail," to problems that would be too technical for non-subway professionals to understand.

WFXT reports that in addition to track problems, Department of Public Utilities inspectors also found trains overshooting platforms, defective third-rail insulators, train drivers not turning on train headlights when they should have, unsecured signal boxes and access panels and a worker not wearing a hard hat, on an outbound stretch of the Red Line's Ashmont branch.

Gonneville said the extra speed restrictions have already been removed on the Red, Blue and Orange Lines after inspections by T track specialists in a "geometry" car, although that does nothing about the slow zones they've already become accustomed to, let alone the shutdown of the Blue Line between Maverick and Airport due to a downed power line. The restrictions remain in place "globally" on the Green Line and the Mattapan Line, he said - although the Mattapan Line isn't running at all this morning because a construction crane removing stairs at the Milton stop fell over.

He declined to get specific on the bad paperwork or just what might happen if they problems were not corrected - or trains were not slowed as they go over problem tracks - beyond saying they meant "the potential to be some form of an incident with our trains."

Meanwhile, top legislative leaders showed their priorities by attending a photo op at the same time, in front of a Duck Boat outside Copley Square, by a sports-betting company on the transformative nature of their voting to allow sports betting in Massachusetts.

Image of Boston trolley back around 1890 from the BPL. Posted under this Creative Commons license.