Franklin Line

Today's MBTA tales of woe come from the Franklin Line, where "mechanical problems" caused big delays and major crowding:

Suzie Mac, an hour late for work, reports:

The Globe reports an outbound Franklin Line train hit a trespasser around 12:30 a.m.

NOTE: Post corrected to show the location of the car will be the one closest to the locomotive, which is only the first car in outbound trains.

This time in Franklin this morning, MBTA Transit Police tweet. NECN reports the man, in his 40s, was struck at the Fisher Street crossing. Train 1028, outbound.

Peter Maranci reports that not only did he get into Ruggles 35 minutes late - because the train ahead of his died and had to be pushed off the tracks (and then shot?) - but then he and other commuters had to rely on the kindness of a conductor just to get out:

... [B]oth of the doors on the side that I was on were stuck (no conductors around, of course!). We all turned and ran for other doors, but the train was moving by the time we got to them. Finally a conductor stopped the train, and we got off. But the doors now opened on the closed part of the platform, the part that has been crumbling for years. We stepped out onto a thick sheet of unsanded ice. We all made it across the ice and around the "CLOSED" barrier safely ...

Dave reports that two cars in a row on his Franklin Line train tonight had no handles on the outsides of their doors:

... Some people ran for the first car that actually had handles, some tried to make contact with someone inside the train so they could open them from the inside and some just stood and cussed. I like to imagine Mr. O'Leary watching scenes like this kind of thing on a video feed in his office at the MBCR and just laughing and laughing.

Charlie on the Commuter Rail notes that the issue of commuter-rail conductors not announcing where their trains are going at Ruggles grows only worse:

They often don't bother to announce the destination of the train, and sometimes they don't even step out on the platform! Since the trains have been more and more erratic, time-wise (they can vary from the schedule by five minutes or more) this is particularly worrisome. Often passengers have to go into a train and ask the passengers inside where the train is going.

Also, there was a car on the Franklin Line last night that smelled like sewage.

You may recall how the initial "let's mess with commuters' heads and not announce destinations at stations like Ruggles" thing started during the secret work action, which is supposed to be over, but, you know, conductors just wanna have fun.

Meanwhile, Train Stopping shows that what we have on commuter rail is a failure to communicate: In response to a commuter complaining about inaccurate delay info on mbta.com, a customer-service manager at MBCR (which actually runs the trains), replied:

We provide the MBTA with the delay information but we cannot access their website to post delay information; that falls under their purview.

Allegedly the MBTA is working on a fix, but has provide no completion date.

Quasit escapes from train 715 on the Franklin Line, which seems about ready to grind to a halt from the sheer weight of all the people now crammed into it:

... Ridership has increased enormously; every seat is full to capacity, the aisles are packed solid, and even the vestibules - which are supposed to be off-limits for passengers - are full of riders.

Yesterday there were 14 people riding in the vestibule that I was in. I was in the spot exactly between two cars; that spot is probably the most dangerous on the train, because it's the intersection between the two coaches. ... Fares haven't been collected on the #715 for weeks. Passengers are openly talking about giving up their passes and buying 12-ride tickets instead, because you can easily get a month or two of rides from one; the conductors simply can't check tickets. ...