BostonNOW! story

A story came out in BostonNOW! about the crowding situation (although the focus was more on the supposed improvement in air conditioning maintainance).

A year later on the rails: No sweat
But riders still cramped on some lines

The T spokesman was quoted in a way that was misleading (or, more likely, made a misleading statement), so I made a comment on the story:

One of the problems dealing with the MBCR/MBTA is that they have all the facts, and they don't share them. Or they share them selectively.

Railroad spokesman Scott Farmelant said "Locomotives can only power so many cars". I'm sure that's true, but it's misleading in the context of the Franklin #715 overcrowding problem: that train normally consists of six single-level coaches. I've seen the same engine pull five DOUBLE-level coaches (which must be much heavier) and two single-level coaches simultaneously.

So the excuse of the Little Engine That Couldn't isn't really credible, is it?

As for the claim that only one coach in 333 lacks air conditioning, I can only say that I simply don't believe it. There haven't been many hot weekdays so far this summer, but I've already seen more than one train this year with at least one coach without AC.

I've started a blog for passengers to records stories and complaints about their commuter rail experiences. It's called "Charlie On The Commuter Rail", and it's on Blogspot. Any passenger is welcome to come by and post their story.

http://charlieonthecommuterrail.blogspot.com/

Incidentally, one clarification for the story: there are normally at least eight people standing PER COACH on the Franklin #715 (and often there are more). That's 50 total standees per train.