The MBTA says it's throwing open the fare gates at Red Line stations between 3 and 7 p.m. for the commuting disaster this morning caused when a maintenance vehicle derailed on the Alewife-bound tracks at Park Street, not just jamming up the tracks but damaging the third rail. Read more.

Yesterday, we recounted Trevyn Langsford's saga about missing a performance of a Somerville musical about the T because he was on a Red Line train behind another Red Line train that had died near Charles/MGH, and then he and everybody else was ordered off so his train could push the disabled train out of the way (well, to a train yard).

We later heard from Laura Dickerson, who was on the train that died. Read more.

A roving UHub photographer reports he rode the Red Line from downtown all the way down to Braintree this afternoon across from a woman holding two signs - the one in the photo above and the one behind it, that read "Following Jesus to the End." He adds:

She was surprisingly normal. Sat there quietly until pulling into Braintree and the signs slipped out of her hands and hit my foot. "Oh my goodness. Forgive me." We both laughed.

When it rains, it pours on the Red Line: At 5:03 p.m., the MBTA reported 25-minute Red Line delays due to unspecified debris on the tracks at Central. That came after the 3:56 p.m. announcement about delays due to signal problems at Braintree.

Banker & Tradesman reports the MBTA is looking to turn the giant frown that is the crumbling garage at Alewife station into a smile by letting a developer replace it with something that would be the ultimate in transit-oriented development. The T acknowledges it would have to work closely with a developer to ensure construction wouldn't disrupt transit service, so more like the work at South Station than the work at Haymarket.

The MBTA reports an outbound Red Line train at Charles/MGH that's developed a sudden fear of crossing the water is gumming up the works towards Alewife.

Transit Police report officers responded to North Quincy on the Red Line on a report of a woman using "a metal object" to smash windows on a Red Line car around 8:30 p.m. on Friday. She will be charged with malicious destruction of property, was brought to a local hospital after officers "determined she was in need of psychological services," police say.

The MBTA reports all that work on the Red Line between Park and JFK/UMass means it's eliminated 13 more slow zones on the line. But all that work can still be for nought if trains keep dying on those zippy tracks, as happened tonight when the T reported delays of up to 20 minutes due to a train gasping its last at Broadway.