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Full speed ahead on commuter rail starting July 3
By adamg on Tue, 06/15/2021 - 10:59am
The MBTA says July 3 is when full service will resume on all commuter-rail lines, including weekend service on the lines that used to have it in the before times but had it axed in January. Masks are still required on T trains and buses and in stations. The T adds:
New schedules will represent an increase in the overall number of weekend trains operating with new, earlier options that match the needs of shift workers like essential employees in the healthcare industry.
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Comments
Glad to hear this. My
Glad to hear this. My experience riding the commuter rail this past has been very good but the return to full service will make it even better.
Hurray!
Weekends now include Sunday and holiday trips on the Needham line! *happy dancing intensifies*
It only took a pandemic
to get rid of some decades-old schedule artifacts, which was basically "whatever was in place when the T began subsidizing the system's former operators in the 1960s."
Providence and Franklin will now have trains before noon on Sundays. Why didn't they before when other lines did? Who knows, other than the "we've always done it that way" at the T. Some of the busiest weekend trains were Providence Line trains arriving in Boston at 12:30 on Sunday afternoons, because of the pent up demand from the morning. Probably plenty of others driving. Now there are options to Downtown at 7, 9 and 11, and it will be easy enough to make a full day trip to Providence, too.
Also, Needham on Sundays. Before now, Needham had "full" weekend service on Saturdays, but not Sundays. Were people in Rozzie, Westie and Needham more religiously observant than elsewhere? No, that's what the New Haven was running when the subsidies began more than 50 years ago.
It's kind of amazing no one looked at a schedule in the past half century and said "well that doesn't really make sense" but then again this is the T we're talking about.
The MBTA ran experimental
The MBTA ran experimental Sunday service on the Needham Line between July 1992 and February 1993, it was discontinued because of low ridership and because the town of Needham complained about noise.
I've complained to the T and
I've complained to the T and anyone that would listen that charging a household of 2 over $5k a year for 5.5 days of service on the Needham line (for 4 stops) wasn't and still isn't very equitable...especially since it seems we are subsidizing the Needham ppl. They do not pay much more for double the distance.
It's far past time to bring the orange line or better yet DMU's to the Needham line.
I take the bus 5 stops.
I take the bus 5 stops. People who take the bus 30 stops don’t pay 6 times as much as me.
The Commuter Rail is way too expensive, but the problem isn’t that people suddenly get a sweet deal when the train crosses the river from West Roxbury into Needham.
not exactly 1960s service
I don't know the full history, but for a while Providence didn't have any weekend service. Weekend trains ended in South Attleboro. It might have been related to funding from Rhode Island.
Of course right now there's no service to South Attleboro due to problems with the overpass. They have an interesting way of (not) telling you about this. South Attleboro is just plain missing from the online schedules (html and pdf). And https://www.mbta.com/stops/place-NEC-1919 says "Departures" followed by a blank space, with no explanation why. You have to go to https://www.mbta.com/schedules/CR-Providence/timetable and click on "Alerts" to see that the station is closed.
Is it good service?
I haven't looked at all runs, but Ari got me to look at Needham. Yes, it's good to finally have Sunday service (I'd be curious what they had before 1979, but I can say it was not a thing after 1987) but clockface service means hourly runs during morning and evening rush. Yes, it's been a while since I've ridden the line during rush hours, but taking a run or 2 away from each end can't be good.
I'm pretty sure neither line
I'm pretty sure neither line was affected by the weekend service shutdown but I'll definitely be doing day trips to Providence and Salem this summer. Anybody know if the pinball arcade in Salem Willows is still in business?
Those two lines continued running on weekends this year
as did Fairmount, Worcester, and Middleborough.
I hope they bring back the semi-express runs
Right now, the rush hour trips on the Fitchburg line (haven't looked at others) have a scheduled stop at every. Single. Station. Making for the most tedious ride in creation.
No new Fitchburg schedule posted yet
The T has posted all of the other new schedules, but not Fitchburg so far.
If they got DMUs (or maybe
If they got DMUs (or maybe even electric trains like the rest of the First and Second Worlds), frequent stops would be less of an issue due to improved acceleration and braking.
They need to bring back the late night trains
This is great news. Not having the weekend trains made it hard for me to get to work. Now the only thing is that they need to consider the people that work 3 to 11. Most of the last trains are at 10:55pm