The MBTA reports all service to Foxborough canceled under further notice because the driver of a truck hauling a trash compactor managed to slam his rig into a bridge in Dedham, hard enough to require track repairs. Here's hoping they get it fixed before Friday's Taylor Swift show at Gillette, because you don't want to get Swifties mad.
Greg Cook watched as firefighters tried to douse a two-alarm brush fire behind the Everett Michael's this afternoon.
E spotted the smoke from Admiral's Hill in Chelsea: Read more.
A Los Angeles man who took in a Patriots game at Gillette Stadium on Sept. 26, 2021 today sued the MBTA and the Kone escalator company for the injuries he says he suffered when the escalator he was riding up from the train at Back Bay after the game suddenly went into reverse, throwing him to the bottom of the escalator, where he became pinned as other people fell on top of him. Read more.
Video showing a four-car MBTA commuter-rail train being put through its paces in the Fall River area, using one T locomotive and two engines leased from Larry's Truck and Electric, a McDonald, OH company that specializes in used rail engines and equipment. Read more.
Smoke rising from near tracks at Hyde Park Avenue and Cummins. Photo by Richard Ovesen.
The MBTA announced this morning it's completed its $255-million purchase of the 24-acre Widett Circle to store and maintain trains on South Station routes - both current and planned future routes to Fall River, New Bedford and Pittsfield. Read more.
A couple of dogs jumped into the Charles River at Millennium Park this afternoon just as an inbound Needham Line train was coming through.
Neal noticed an interesting request marked on a wheelchair "bridge plate" at the Amtrak/commuter-rail platform at Back Bay.
John "Big John" Pigsley, the assistant chief engineer for Keolis Commuter Services, which runs the MBTA's commuter-rail system, was arrested today on charges he funneled millions of dollars to a friend's company - and his own Pigman Group concern - for equipment and services never provided to the system but which instead helped pay for extensive renovations to Pigsley's homes in Beverly and Vermont. Read more.
The T reports a train out of Newburyport is at least an hour late getting to North Station because it's developed one of those embarrassing mechanical issues somewhere near Swampscott. A train out of Rockport, meanwhile, is 15 to 25 minutes late because of signal problems between Beverly and North Station, the T reports.
Transit Police report that early Sunday, a man plowed into the cement-anchored sign at one of the Hyde Park Avenue parking lots at the Readville commuter-rail stop, called an Uber and then left the destroyed remains of his car behind.
Police say they tracked down the man and will charge him with leaving the scene of an accident.
Update: MBTA says it wasn't concrete, but about a pound of felt.
Two largeish concrete chunks observed this morning.
The MBTA reports a variety of delays on trains out of South Station, but the longest is 30 minutes on the 5:45 train on the Fairmount Line, due to a switch problem.
CommonWealth takes a look at the MBTA's plan to buy most of Widett Circle, which nobody had heard of before the Olympic effort briefly made it famous, for what would essentially be a waiting area for commuter trains, doesn't make sense.
The commuter-rail Twitter feed today is full of delay notices due to severe weather conditions, broken rails, signal issues and, of course, mechanical issues (and in some cases severe weather conditions AND mechanical issues). Read more.
Transit Police report that around 5 a.m., a man from Lowell began yelling racial epithets at commuters and station workers, and that he refused entreaties from officers to shut up or leave, so they arrested him for trespassing.
The MBTA said today it's going to try to buy the 24-acre Widett Circle, which our brief Olympics bid lifted out of obscurity only to return to being the home of low-profile food-processing concerns, to use as a place to store commuter-rail trains between the morning and afternoon rush hours. Read more.
Isaac Gardner was waiting for the train in Wellesley Square around 8:15 a.m. when the train arrived and then, just couldn't stop: Read more.
Yes, the box is hiding just what you'd think, police say.
Transit Police report they are looking for a guy who exposed more of himself than he should have on an outbound Kingston Line train that had just left South Station around 8:45 p.m. on Nov. 19.
If Mr. You Know What in a Box looks familiar, contact detectives at 617-222-1050 or send an anonymous text to 873873.
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