Fitchburg Line riders feeling pain: Two hours with no train

A train died near Wachusett station and that has gummed everything up. Or as SMM put it around 7:40 a.m.:

Not one train has left Wachusett in almost two hours. It’s 15 degrees. Unacceptable.

Another rider took the time to write a more detailed complaint to the T and Keolis about the complete lack of information - which made her 2-year-old break down in tears:

My specific complaint is that the @MBTA_CR account posted this Tweet:

Fitchburg Line Update: Service continues to be significantly delayed by a disabled train blocking train movement between the maintenance facility and Wachusett Station. Train 492 will depart Littleton at 7:50 am and make all local stops inbound on schedule.

My family accordingly planned for this departure time, and, like dozens of others, were walking down the ramp at Littleton station at 7:45. At which point it appears that someone made a decision to depart that train early, leaving us (and many other customers who pay attention to the announcements and plan accordingly) standing in the 15-degree cold with no trains. I had a sobbing 2yo because “the train left without us”.

This is completely unacceptable. You cannot tell your customers a scheduled plan and then depart that train early, especially when the rest of the line is suffering this degree of failure. There must be better coordination between the communications team and the dispatch team. I’m an informed, pro-transit, generally-sympathetic customer, and it’s customers like me who are most furious this morning. We read the alerts and the updates and plan accordingly, but that doesn’t work when you fail to follow your own plans.

Please let me know what Keolis is doing to improve this issue in the future.