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South Station runs short of trains
By adamg on Mon, 01/06/2014 - 4:52pm
Trains on the Worcester, Fairmount and Franklin lines have been cancelled this afternoon because of what MBCR says is "a shortage of equipment."
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Comments
Don't you just hate it when
Don't you just hate it when trains disappear?
How do you say, "Franklin, Forge Park" in french.
Sorry plebeians, too busy
Sorry plebeians, too busy dreamin' of casino revenue!
Commuter rails line to the
Commuter rails line to the cainos will run be every 15 min, 24/7.
MBCR is PISSED
MBCR is pissed they aren't getting their contract renewed and so they are taking it out on us (again), like the last gasps of a defeated army. I cant wait for them to no longer (mis)manage the commuter rail.
Contract Change Will Be Messy
I remember when Keolis got the contract for Virginia Railway Express. Amtrak (the previous contractor) was as unhelpful as possible with the changeover. They wouldn't even let the new people train for the service. I guess the management of MBRC will just stop caring altogether.
Any chance of getting Keolis in quicker? Of course, the new contract hasn't even been voted on. Which makes one wonder, why would the board vote for MBRC after something like this?
No matter how the board votes...
...I have a feeling this will end in lawsuits. The Globe article from Monday on MBCR's "feeling slighted" in the bid review process seems like a rather thinly-veiled threat of legal action if they don't get it. This will get worse before it gets better.
On the plus side, if they do manage to get Keolis in, the general consensus from Virginia is that they've done a good job down there.
of course
of course they will... MBCR didn't win and are being sore sports about it, so they are going to fight like hell to keep that contract and that includes wasting the tax payers money on lawsuits. (remember in the end we end up paying for all of this).
Not the most auspicious time
Today's Globe had an item about MBCR wanting to challenge the T's (alleged) plans to award the contract to its opposing bidder. And then they pull something like this? Do they want to be judged on what they propose to do, or on what they have done and are continuing to do?
broken train
Lets say what we mean Shortage of equipment = Broken train
Fairmount train cancellations aren't news
The Fairmount/Readville train is cancelled regularly, during rush hour, every day, weather or no weather.
When after years of work by dedicated neighborhood activists, new stops were built in Boston's most underserved neighborhoods, all I could think was "are they going to bait and switch all of these people, too"? And the answer has been yes. All of these new riders from these new stops are left stranded in South Station every day. On Thursday night during the blizzard, our plane landed in Logan, but our Fairmount 6:45 train was cancelled five minutes before it was scheduled to leave the station, leaving us stranded with our luggage at 6 degrees and a worsening storm. The later trains were cancelled as well, as had been the 5:45 train. Multiple Fairmount trains have been cancelled every day since the storm.
If you complain about the constant cancellations on this line, you're told it's cancelled every day because it has the lowest ridership. The ridership has gone up significantly on this line, but how can you build that if riders know they can't depend on the train running? The reason this train is cancelled every day is because it runs through poor neighborhoods where people have the least clout and the least time an energy to spend calling and complaining. Try canceling the Lexington train every day and see what happens.
Lexington is a poor example
Lexington lost commuter rail service in 1977, despite protests that culminated in federal lawsuits and a court order to restore service after construction of the Alewife garage was complete. That right of way has long since been paved over to make the Minuteman Bikeway. If you're searching for proof that wealthy suburbs would never see a backdoor service cut like this, you may want to keep looking.
Not much to do with contract
Really, nothing to do with the contract, guys.
Keolis hasn't even won approval, so why wouldn't MBCR want to flex it's muscles?
This happens whenever a backlog of maintenance creeps up, which isn't inconceivable due to age of some equipment.
The thing is, they usually don't outright tell you that an equipment shortage is why a train is cancelled.
Yeah, how was MBCR supposed
Yeah, how was MBCR supposed to know people wanted to go to work Monday? In the future please call MBCR ahead of time and let them know you want to get to work, and then they can plan to get the equipment ready.