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The National Transportation Safety Board reports its initial analysis of a trolley-smashing crash at the East Somerville Green Line stop last month is that the driver of train in service came into the station way too fast, especially given that there was a stopped, out-of-service trolley sitting at the station. Read more.
Got to Central (northbound) at 6:35, train waiting. MBTA email reports "All train service between Alewife and Harvard is operating on the southbound track. Personnel are on scene working to remove the disabled train near Davis from the main line".
The Dorchester Reporter reports the Neponset River overflowed its banks and flooded Milton station on the Mattapan Line this morning, forcing the Milton Fire Department to send firefighters in a raft to rescue one trolley's driver and six passengers.
The T shut the Orange Line at Tufts and requested Boston firefighters around 7:30 p.m. when something related to the third rail on the outbound side began to smoke - possibly a heater installed along the power source.
All the commuter-rail lines in and out of South Station - save the Worcester and Kingston lines - are now reporting delays, possibly because a train slipped just a bit off the rails. Based on the delay times posted by the T, we're guessing it's the 1:17 p.m. outbound Fairmount Line train, which the T reports "remains stopped after South Station and is 45-55 minutes behind schedule."
Amtrak reports "lengthy delays" due to "a disabled commuter train blocking the tracks in the area."
The MBTA announced today that New Bedford, Fall River and other South Coast points will get commuter-rail service starting on the morning of March 24 - for the first time in 65 years. Read more.
Greg Hunt spotted this plein-air trolley moseying up the B Line yesterday.
OK, OK, it's really a Green Line power-department catenary-checking vehicle, but still. Imagine if they had summer drink service on that.
The State House News Service reports the MBTA thinks all that track work on the Red Line means they could soon get those trains up to 50 m.p.h. - and that on at least one stretch, the Orange Line might top off at 55 m.p.h.
Tonight was not commuter rail's finest hour, or in the case of one frustrated rider, four hours. The T reported "severe delays" on the Needham, Franklin/Foxboro and Providence/Stoughton lines due to both "a switch issue" near Ruggles and "an equipment shortage," because you know how hard it can be to get good trains on short notice. Read more.
A Braintree-bound Red Line train had to be evacuated at Park Street shortly after 2:40 p.m. after an overheated motor began emitting enough smoke to have Boston firefighters come running, only they were sent away after the T got people off the train and managed to move it to the Cabot yard in South Boston to fix the problem.
Around 6:40 a.m., an MBTA manhole at the Green Line station at Harvard and Commonwealth Avenues in Allston began to emit smoke, bringing in Boston firefighters and forcing the T to rustle up some buses to provide service between Washington and Babcock streets until its engineers could fix the problem.
The MBTA reports scads of problems on commuter-rail lines into South Station this morning due to trains with "mechanical issues," and switches with unspecified issues.
Gov. Healey today announced a plan to spend an extra $8 billion over the next ten years on transportation projects, including a large increase in the MBTA's annual budget and nearly $1.4 billion for capital projects that would include new subway and commuter-rail cars, spending on "station accessibility and resilience, track improvements and power system resiliency" and bolstering ferry service. Read more.
The MBTA is putting up brightly colored signs that sort of look like radically simplified QR codes as part of a pilot to try to help the visually impaired better get around the system with the help of a phone app that can read the signs. Read more.
Shiny and new tracks don't do much good when a shiny new train just dies and then won't be budged, as happened this morning at Chinatown, where one of the new Orange Line trains despaired of life and just died and then T workers ran into problems removing the carcass. The T is now telling riders to take the Green Line downtown instead - or if they're further out, hop on commuter rail at Oak Grove, Malden Center, Forest Hills, Ruggles or Back Bay.
Boston firefighters responded to the Stony Brook Orange Line station around midnight after smoke began filling the station from a fire on the outbound tracks. Read more.
In a defeat for Milton and other communities aghast at the idea of the teeming masses moving in, the Supreme Judicial Court today ruled a state regulation that requires towns served by the MBTA to add at least one zone that theoretically could support more housing is entirely constitutional - and that the state can even sue towns that resist. Read more.
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