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Commuter rail breaks up families
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Comments
huh?
Is it standard operating procedures to start rolling the train with young children on the stairways? Maybe there is something wrong with the standard operating procedures?
Let me guess the T's answer ... Another pay raise for the T managment.
Situation Normal?
Over the past week I've noticed a few times when the Fitchburg train (both inbound and outbound trips) seemed to have only one conductor--where normally there are at least two, for trains numbering from five to seven cars.
I wonder whether that was the case with this train.
On a five-car train, that's 20 exit stairs and doors; on a seven-car train, 28. How can one person possibly keep an eye on, nevermind ensure safe egress, throughout the entire train?
That's it - blame all the new riders!
This could easily happen to anybody given the short time that the train was stopped (46 seconds). Why did they not wait for the conductor to signal the all clear???? It can easily take a person with a bike - or a person with kids and their bikes - longer than that to get off the train. Add in strollers, etc. and you get real fun on the steep stairs. Even scarier, it takes longer than that for a mobility impaired person to get out because so few stops are ADA compliant.
On the Lowell line, the conductor is always the LAST person on the train AFTER all have gotten off and boarded. This incident sounds like either a lack of conductors or a lack of communication checks or broken equipment. This is clearly NOT a case of parent fail or passenger fail! Get off it Make Believe Commuter Rail arseholes and get off it NOW! A kid trying to get off could easily have gone under the tracks - no excuses there ... FIX THE REAL PROBLEMS ALREADY!
Exactly!
I love how the MBCR denies responsibility and puts the blame on the passengers. Their response is essentially, "Let that be a lesson to you people" and not, "Let's see what we can do to prevent that from happening again."
If in fact they "followed all established protocol and procedures"--which, given that the incident happened at all, is pretty implausible--then obviously those procedures are inadequate.
On the Fitchburg Line, at least, doors and stairways are regularly left open even while the train is moving at full speed, either because the conductor simply doesn't have time to close them all, or they're deliberately left open to let air into the cars when the ventilation fails.
The conductors do stop people from standing in the vestibules whenever they can--but they can't be in all places at once, and I cringe whenever I see an elderly person or a child passing between cars with the doors wide open. Regular riders have learned how to raise the trap doors off the stairs and open the train doors for themselves--and they often need to because a conductor is nowhere in sight. A number of times I've seen people jump off after the train had started moving. Actually, it's kind of surprising that something worse hasn't happened...yet.
The T's protocols are broken
The article says: "The MBCR says they followed all established protocol and procedures while this family was trying to exit the train." This means that it is now STANDARD PROCEDURE not to get an OK from the conductors before putting the train in motion.
The article says: "The MBCR is now looking into implementing a public awareness safety campaign because of all of the new riders taking the commuter rail." No doubt this will consist of continuing to claim that unattended bags and terrorists are the primary danger to commuters. Keep people scared of terrorists, keep conducting random searches at train stations, and passengers will forget to complain about the situations which are the actual primary danger to them: human error and stupid established procedures.
45 Seconds?
So we have 45 seconds to exit?
Gee, I've been riding commuter rail since 1987, with and without my bike, and I have NEVER heard that one!
Sounds like somebody looked at the stop time and pulled a "policy" out of their ass to cover it!
I wonder how many ADA violations that one is going to rack up? I know of several passengers that would find that most difficult to comply with, given the poor state of egress at many stops that don't have level platforms, and the inability of somebody using a walker or cane to spring open a flat walkway to get to the stairs.
Lets assume maybe the
Lets assume maybe the conductor didnt see the kids on the stairs, what about the people on the platform right next to the train? Im assuming the parents who got left behind would have been close enough to the train for the conductor to think they were too close to move the train.
I havent taken the commuter rail since I was in highschool (since then I have moved most of my life within normal T distance and got a car) but back then (pre 2000) I remember the conductors being anal about people in the stairways while the train was moving, and the closeness of people to the tracks. I remember being yelled at to get away from the train and I wasnt even on the yellow line. So this kind of suprises me because it kind of tells me there must have been staff cut backs.
I was on that particular
I was on that particular train. The two mothers and their unruly children were sitting in the front seats of the car closest to the doors manned by the conductor. The Waltham stop was announced over the PA when leaving Brandeis, again when arriving in Waltham, and also by the conductor when he opened the doors to the car after the train had stopped. I was seated across from them and had no trouble hearing any of these announcements. Passengers exited, passengers entered, and this group was evidently unaware of where they were. After the train began to move, they (the two mothers) ran to the front of the car and down the stairs, knocking the conductor off of the train in the process. Considering how fast a train accelerates, they should consider themselves lucky for not getting themselves or the conductor killed. Additionally, the conductor basically saved the lives of the young children the parents left behind by reboarding the moving train, keeping the children on board and then stopping the train once the now terrified children were safely back inside a passenger coach. He stayed with the children and calmed them down while the train was backed to the Waltham station and then escorted them back to the waiting parents. I'm no expert, but I'd say that train crew performed quite well in what truly could have been a tragic situation.