They're delayed more than an hour, so of course Rockport riders are pretty sour
UPDATE: At 9:42 p.m., Erin Larsen, who got on at Montserrat around 7:07 reported: "It’s been 2 hours and 20 min and we still haven’t arrived at North Station. Plus TWO trains (inbound) have passed us."
Shortly before 9 a.m., Keolis updated us on the fate of Train 156, which left Newburyport at 7 a.m.
Newburyport Train 156 (7:00 am from Newburyport) is now operating 1hr and 20 mins behind schedule between Salem and North Station due to assisting disabled Train 104 and a mechanical issue.
The people behind ol' Train 156 are not doing much better, of course:
Newburyport Trn 155 is now operating about 1hr behind schedule betweeen Swampscott & Newburyport due to train traffic of earlier disabled Tr
Fed-up passengers made a break for it and fled the train in Salem.
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Comments
Disaster
The commuter rail is a daily dumpster fire. Late and cancelled trains occur every day for any number of reasons (e.g. mechanical, switch, signal, late arrival, equip swap, etc. etc.). Note that when short conductors, the excuse is mechanical - so, we don't really know if this one is accurate unless the train actually stops. The "refurbishment" project is showing absolutely no improvement and the coaches on order are still years away. Meanwhile, politicals just ignore the daily mess as they drive their SUV to and from work.
I usually get annoyed when
I usually get annoyed when people complain about the T, since most of the time the subway gets people where they're going.
But not the commuter rail, in which case I wholeheartedly agree. Commuter rail unreliability is the major scandal that needs to exist. Look up the Mean Distance Between Failure stats if you want to get angry.
They're reinstalling PTC on the CR Lines
Because they installed it improperly the first time. Everything under Baker will have to be rebuilt.
Please say
you are joking
No Joke. Lowell Line PTC reinstall started up this year
You can see one of the PTC construction sites from Woburn-Anderson on the weekends. Keolis conductors have been relaying the same PTC news.
World Class
World-class, baby!
HOW DID THIS TRANSPORTATION MESS HAPPEN
Every time you get stuck on a MBTA train think of this recent report.
"When he was Secretary of Administration and Finance, now Governor Baker was the main architect of the Big Dig financing plan - the $5.8 billion dollar project that resulted in 21.93 billion in expenses (after interest payments) and left the MBTA with Billions of dollars in debt.
When the poorly managed project went dramatically over budget, Baker set up GANs, or Grant Anticipation Notes. These were investment vehicles backed by future federal highway dollars - and while they helped pay for the big dig at the time, they resulted in nearly 1 billion dollars in underfunding for state transportation - per year.
This led to the eventual "forward funding" initiative that split the MBTA from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, with the intent of a self funded MBTA and balanced budget for MA transportation. To balance the MA DOT budget? They transferred $3.2 Billion dollars of debt to the MBTA. In case you couldn't tell, this was a disaster - the MBTA was not able to fund itself, the debt continued to grow, and the problems continued to escalate.
Is this all Baker's fault? Of course not. But he played a large role in getting us here. And as things have gotten worse and worse over the years, little action has been taken. We have reached a breaking point. People are not just inconvenienced, lives are at risk. The people responsible and the people in power need to be held accountable. In this case, it can be argued they are one and the same."
It’s time to do something Governor Baker.
Don't be ridiculous
Our transportation problems are clearly because we haven't built enough roads and parking spaces. That's just common sense!
/s
What if they they gave a rush
What if they they gave a rush hour and nobody came?