The State House News Service reports the MBTA thinks all that track work on the Red Line means they could soon get those trains up to 50 m.p.h. - and that on at least one stretch, the Orange Line might top off at 55 m.p.h.
Tonight was not commuter rail's finest hour, or in the case of one frustrated rider, four hours. The T reported "severe delays" on the Needham, Franklin/Foxboro and Providence/Stoughton lines due to both "a switch issue" near Ruggles and "an equipment shortage," because you know how hard it can be to get good trains on short notice. Read more.
A Braintree-bound Red Line train had to be evacuated at Park Street shortly after 2:40 p.m. after an overheated motor began emitting enough smoke to have Boston firefighters come running, only they were sent away after the T got people off the train and managed to move it to the Cabot yard in South Boston to fix the problem.
Around 6:40 a.m., an MBTA manhole at the Green Line station at Harvard and Commonwealth Avenues in Allston began to emit smoke, bringing in Boston firefighters and forcing the T to rustle up some buses to provide service between Washington and Babcock streets until its engineers could fix the problem.
The MBTA reports scads of problems on commuter-rail lines into South Station this morning due to trains with "mechanical issues," and switches with unspecified issues.
Gov. Healey today announced a plan to spend an extra $8 billion over the next ten years on transportation projects, including a large increase in the MBTA's annual budget and nearly $1.4 billion for capital projects that would include new subway and commuter-rail cars, spending on "station accessibility and resilience, track improvements and power system resiliency" and bolstering ferry service. Read more.
Photo by Turlach MacDonagh.
The MBTA is putting up brightly colored signs that sort of look like radically simplified QR codes as part of a pilot to try to help the visually impaired better get around the system with the help of a phone app that can read the signs. Read more.
Shiny and new tracks don't do much good when a shiny new train just dies and then won't be budged, as happened this morning at Chinatown, where one of the new Orange Line trains despaired of life and just died and then T workers ran into problems removing the carcass. The T is now telling riders to take the Green Line downtown instead - or if they're further out, hop on commuter rail at Oak Grove, Malden Center, Forest Hills, Ruggles or Back Bay.
Boston firefighters responded to the Stony Brook Orange Line station around midnight after smoke began filling the station from a fire on the outbound tracks. Read more.
In a defeat for Milton and other communities aghast at the idea of the teeming masses moving in, the Supreme Judicial Court today ruled a state regulation that requires towns served by the MBTA to add at least one zone that theoretically could support more housing is entirely constitutional - and that the state can even sue towns that resist. Read more.
Around 7:20 p.m., the MBTA sent out word that Red Line riders could expect delays of up to 15 minutes - even including the dreaded standing by at stations - due to Yet More Problems with signals, this time between Quincy Center and Wollaston.
Our own Cybah recently snapped some shots underneath the 51-story office/condo building nearing completion above the tracks of South Station. Read more.
Neal Gaffey asks:
Does anyone know why the Union Square T station smells like chocolate? It is delightful.
Imagine if they extended the Riverside Line to the suburbs of Elmira, NY.
Besides being located in the town of Horseheads, NY, which is worth a detour just to say you've been to Horseheads, NY, the village of Elmira Heights is also home to the US factory for Spanish train maker CAF, where the MBTA's next-gen, Type 10 Green Line trolleys will be built - 100 or so of them, 40 feet longer than the current trolleys and with multiple bendi-spots and all handicap accessible doors. Read more.
State officials, MBTA workers celebrate the end of T slow zones (photo by governor's office).
State officials this morning officially celebrated the removal of the last official slow zone on the MBTA, on the Green Line specifically - after more than 20 years of subway slow zones. Not all riders were able to join in the celebrations, though, because they were outside shivering in the cold waiting for a Red Line shuttle bus due to a cracked rail near Wollaston. Read more.
Photo by Transit PD.
For the third time in two weeks, somebody in a Toyota wound up ensnared on Green Line tracks, this time at the end of the B Line at Boston College. Read more.
Signs at the Tufts Medical Center Orange Line stop still direct people to Don Bosco Technical High School, some 26 years after the school closed and got turned into a DoubleTree hotel. Read more.
It's a nightmare getting home on commuter-rail trains out of South Station because of an Amtrak train that took out one of the overhead power lines near Back Bay. Or as the T puts it:
Framingham/Worcester, Needham, Franklin/Foxboro Line & Providence/Stoughton Line passengers are experiencing severe delays in both directions due to a downed catenary wire & earlier disabled Amtrak train. All trains must operate on one track at Back Bay.
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