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Mulch proves a big pain in the ass for Red Line at JFK/UMass
By adamg on Mon, 05/15/2023 - 12:25pm
A pile of flaming mulch off Sydney Street near the Red Line tracks at JFK/UMass forced the T to shut off Red Line power shortly before noon so firefighters could safely douse the fire. The power's been restored, but, of course, there are still residual delays.
One Red Line rider who got caught up in the mulch morass made a request to the T:
Hey @MBTA can your train operator use English and stop telling us we’re frozen here at JFK due to “a code 1 situation.”
Earlier in the files of Mulch: The Hidden Menace:
Watertown house set ablaze by flaming mulch in a barrel
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Comments
How about spending a second
How about spending a second to Google "code 1" instead of showing off on Twitter
By the way, I'm being sarcastic.
Yeah, train announcements that have to be googled to be understood is clearly a reasonable way to run a transit system, and by no means is worthy of a complaint.
The tweet is by Michael Jonas, who ...
Long ago surpassed his need, if he ever had it, to show off on Twitter (I could tell you more, but, no, you could Google it).
In any case, I took your suggestion to heart and Googled "Code 1."
The first hit looks pretty tasty, but probably has nothing to do with why a train might be held in the station. The second looks like potentially useful service for people who have indulged way too much in the first, but, again, not likely relevant.
Ah, but the third looks almost relevant, only it's not, since its vague enough to be meaningless.
The fourth also looks kind of, almost, if you squint, relevant, except that a) this was a fire issue, not a police issue, b) even if it were a police issue, and even if Transit or Boston Police responded, neither of them, in fact, use "Code 1" (source: Me spending countless hours listening to the police scanner), and, in any case, it would do nothing to inform Jonas as to what the issue was.
Other links will let you know that Code 1 is the international prefix for calls to the US, that it was a kind of yo-yo in a specific video game, that there is a medical-supply company called Code 1, that it's also a specific Minecraft error message, etc., etc., ad infinitum (well, or until I got bored, which didn't even take me until the second page of Google results).
In conclusion: Nah.
Lol.
Lol. But seriously, there is an intercom button. If you don't understand the operator, you can talk to him.
So what you're saying is ...
MBTA drivers should use internal lingo that no rider will understand and if a rider wants to know exactly why they're stuck motionless at a station, they need to hope the intercom works and that the driver won't scream at them that the intercom is reserved for, you know, Code 1s.
Ah yes, talk to the operator
Ah yes, talk to the operator over the intercom. I can't imagine why that option never occurred to me in 40+ years of riding the T.
By all means...
...demand to speak to the manager, Karen.
Most mulch is vile stuff.
It makes you gag from mulch fumes. Then it smolders and catches fire.
Spring air is supposed to smell like lilacs, not petroleum waste.
Thank god
I thought I was the only one repelled by it, like I had the mulch equivalent of cilantro sensitivity. Yeah, that stuff is so foul.
Mulch
Mulch: Threat or Menace?
I think it smells like a fine wine
but it's probably important context to also note that I don't drink.
You can smell it?
AhhhhCHOOO!
The smell depends on what was mulched
Some woods, like cedar, are quite aromatic, while others are less so. Elm is sometimes called pisswood because of how it smells when it's cut. It probably doesn't wind up in mulch much.
Then there's the ground-up tires stuff, which yeah. IDK if rubber mulch spontaneously combusts or is at risk from the dreaded carelessly-disposed smoking material, but if it did catch fire, it would be awful.
Truth
Honest to god cedar mulch is an absolute pleasure, also hard to find, but worth the effort. The rest? Fuhgeddaboutit.