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On this of all days: Green Line grinds to a halt; dead trolley is at fault

One of the MBTA's newest trolleys suffered some sort of catastrophic failure with that swiveling mechanism in the center of the car near Boylston shortly before 3 p.m., jamming up the line on one of its busiest days of the year - and leaving some passengers on other trolleys trapped for an hour or more as T workers tried to get them and the newly dysfunctional trolley safely out of the tunnels.

It took the T more than 90 minutes to finally get the Type 9 car - one of 24 the T bought from a Spanish trolley maker in anticipation of the opening of the Green Line Extension - out of the way. The oldest of those cars only dates to 2018.

The Green Line's Patriots Day collapse - the T was halting trolleys at Arlington on one side of downtown and North Station on the other - left riders fuming, none more so than the ones who found themselves trapped on other, non-moving trolleys. As one reported:

over an hour plus i was so close to calling 911 getting @bostonpolice to allow all passengers off at Copley this kind of entrapment is WRONG

Yes, it was bad:

There’s a Lord of the Flies scenario brewing down here. The hierarchy is being established and someone just blew on a conch shell…. This is devolving rapidly…

When the T responded to one increasingly upset rider that crews were working as fast as they could to get people unpacked, another passenger responded to that:

Where??? Because I’m currently stuck in the train at copley and all we hear is “well he moving soon” over and over again for the past hour

No word if among the people trapped down below was Randy Clarke, general manager of the Washington Metro, up here for the race, who much enjoyed his ride on the Orange Line the day before.

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Comments

Welcome to Boston, once-a-year visitors!

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...they blow in for First Night too. And for the Patriots parade, should there be one.

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We could have one or both this year

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I used to work in Longwood and the Green Line was part of my commute home. Despite my complete lack of interest in baseball, I kept the Red Sox calendar bookmarked so I knew when to expect home-game crowds. One highlight of my commute was often watching a crowd of people in Red Sox jerseys nearly fall over every time the streetcar made a sudden move, due to not knowing how it's vital to hold onto something during a T ride.

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What do you mean hold on? You’re supposed to stand in the middle swivel thing and pretend you’re surfing

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Beneath the streets is Boston Wrong

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They don't anything as sturdy as they did years ago.

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The Boylston curve is the tightest that the Green Line cars have to be designed to handle. I guess it was too much for this one.

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I thought the T was ridiculous to act like this $15 all day commuter rail pass-any line was a "REAL DEAL!". Of course folks will take one line in and the same one back, and likely not take any others as they are in town for watching Marathon not to ride around Eastern Mass on Keolis system. Now wonder if these folks were also then further delayed by missing commuter trains? What a time to ride the T and to be alive.

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It was also very clear that the pass wasn't good for bus or subway. So people would get out at North and South Station and then have to spend time at a fare machine for the last leg of the trip. I thought the use of paper tappable CharlieTickets had made it possible for the T to combine passes: for example, through my employer, I get a commuter rail Zone 1A pass; it's just printed on a CharlieTicket that functions as the monthly subway/bus pass. It would have a smoother experience for everyone if this could have been a "Marathon Day Pass".

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Wait, they didn't make an exception to the Copley closure to let people off who were trapped on a train for an hour? That's totally ridiculous. I might have considered pulling the emergency exit lever.

And why didn't they run the northern trains to Government Center? There's that really nice loop there for this very purpose.

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Where??? Because I’m currently stuck in the train at copley and all we hear is “we'll be moving soon” over and over again for the past hour

Wasn't it correct.....after the last announcement?

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