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Riders who sat on broken train in the morning repeated the process, with no warning
By adamg on Thu, 12/17/2015 - 6:32pm
This time, an outbound Stoughton Line train met up with the ferryman between Forest Hills and Readville around 5:30 p.m. As JDB put it:
Stuck on broken down #mbta commuter rail looking at sign stating that #mbta is ready for winter.40 min delay this morning. #IRONY.
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Comments
If Only There Was Tons Of Snow ...
... the governor says everything will run perfectly then.
They just added
Pre cancelled train schedules for when it snows. They completely screwed me, my train to and from work would both be taken out of service is there's a snow storm.
Crazy
Yeah, I just saw that. They are cancelling the 5:40pm Franklin Forge Park in the case of severe weather. I don't understand this - this train is packed and popular. So all those folks are going to cram on the 6:15pm train? I hope it is a mile long with double decker cars.
The trains they choose to
The trains they choose to cancel during Severe Weather are based less on ridership and more on how feasible they are to run given equipment turns, schedule tightness, etc.
For example, the canceled trains may have shorter turns in Boston, or have a narrow slot to pass through a stretch of single track, so them being delayed would likely lead to cascading delays.
I don't know how all the equipment turns and such work on the Franklin Line, but I would hazard a guess that maybe the 5:40 train turns quickly from an inbound train, while the 6:15 train lays over in Boston during the day.
This is just a guess though.
I was on that delayed train
I was on that delayed train (extra 90 min on the commute) this morning. My outbound train tonight stopped near Readville and was thinking it was happening twice in a day, thankfully only a 5 minute delay.
KEOLIS doing such a better job than the previous contractor, eh?
AWESOME!!..."Keolis" must be French for "What a bunch of SUCKERS" in Massachusetts to give us a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar contract (even though we had ZERO experience in Massachusetts transportation).....Ahhh, but "follow the money"!!!...(I'm quite sure NONE of those dollars ended up kicked back into any State official's pocket...or at a remodeled second home on the Cape....or at the condo in Costa Rica...etc etc...right?)
It looks like someone
Used to work for MBRC.
Remember that time some Worcester commuters had, like, a 3 hour commute home?
No, the biggest mistake Keolis made was bidding in the first place. Poor, naive kids, trying to take on the politically connected clusterf@ck that had the job before them.
Maybe next go round Amtrak will put in a bid.
Hey, Amtrak used to run it
Hey, Amtrak used to run it years ago!
It didn't go so well, leading to hostility between the MBTA/Amtrak and B&M/Guilford.
I don't think Amtrak is interested in any new commuter rail contracts anyway. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the T should just bring commuter rail ops in-house like every other sizable system in the US.
Now you're just trying to be rational
I thought the only way you can get public transit to run well is to contract it out.
Other than simplifying whom
Other than simplifying whom to blame for the flaming-clusterfuck-on-tracks that is the CR, what would that change? It's not like when the CR contract changes hands, all the equipment and/or workers are replaced. It's just the management and those who make the money that changes, which won't affect anything "on the ground."
Eliminating the blame game
Eliminating the blame game would actually help significantly. The T wouldn't be able to pass problems off as the contractor's fault, and the contractor wouldn't be able to claim problems were out of their control, making them theoretically more likely to actually fix problems.
Also, the T has no profit motive. They are a government agency that would be operating the service as a public service, not trying to make money. This should theoretically save the taxpayers money (not having anyone skimming profits off the top), and result in fewer cut corners.
The average passenger wouldn't likely notice any day-to-day difference, but there's a reason every other major transit agency runs commuter rail service in-house. It just makes sense.
Isn't the difference in the pension costs?
Whereas T employees would get MBTA pensions, Keolis "honors railroad retirement". I don't know for sure but I'd be willing to bet the former costs more than the latter. If I am right about that, I would like to know how the increased pension costs compares to the profits. I have a feeling that it might at best be a wash, or that the additional pensions would cost a more.
That's actually a good
That's actually a good question I hadn't considered. Yes, Keolis employees are covered under Railroad Retirement, but I'm fairly certain they would be as T employees as well, since Railroad Retirement is a federal program akin to Social Security that covers, IIRC, all employees engaged in FRA-regulated railroad activities, which would cover the MBTA commuter rail (but not rapid transit).
I can't find a definitive answer online right this moment, and certainly do not have firsthand expertise in the matter, but I would hazard a guess that commuter rail employees would be covered by Railroad Retirement rather than MBTA Pensions no matter whether they were employees of a contractor or direct employees of the MBTA.
We need a pension/OPEB expert in here. Anyone? Bueller?
Again, I do not know this for sure either, but I would be surprised to learn that the MBTA could lawfully discriminate among its employees as to who is entitled to a MBTA pension and who is not. I think that they are all covered by G.L. c. 32 or which every state pension statute covers the MBTA (regardless if they drive a red line train, city bus or a commuter rail loco). Similarly, I do not think that whether or not a T employee belongs to X or Y union has much or any impact on the statutory pension. Lastly, I think that if the state pension is more generous that "federal railroad retirement", I think that T employees would get the former and not the later (e.g., when I worked in the public sector at the state level, I did not pay federal social security taxes because I paid into the state pension system (at 11% each week!) instead).
Perhaps someone with pension/OPEB expertise can sort us out.
As strange as it is to say this...
At least on my line (Haverhill) I'd say they are doing a better job. My trains are almost always on time in the last couple months. The worst single delay I've had in six months was due to Pan Am (broken down freight train), most of the rest have been due to trackwork related delays (which is up to the MBTA to plan/manage). It's still got a long way to go to get to "decent" but it's gotten a lot better over the course of this year.
One thing to remember is that there's much more of an equipment surplus this year. It doesn't mean trains won't break down, but at least there's something to replace the broken equipment when it fails, instead of having to band-aid it and shove it back out on the road. With the new diesels in service, there's almost 30 locomotives above minimum requirements on the active roster. There's some (small) reasons to be cautiously optimistic.