On Friday March 7th, the Franklin #710 train (departing from Franklin/Forge Park at 7:45 AM) skipped the Ruggles stop. They announced it; apparently there was some sort of signal problem.
This morning, March 10th, the Franklin #708 train (departing from Franklin/Forge Park at 7:00 AM) also skipped the Ruggles stop. Again, it was announced on the train PA system.
I've put in for the on-time service guarantee on both days. Since the train never arrived at my destination, the MBTA can hardly claim that it was on time!
I called them just to see if this was going to be a regular occurrence. According to their customer service rep, they don't expect it to be - it's just a signal problem. Now that I think of it, that's a little disturbing - I wonder what other problems there might be? I'd hate to find out by having my train run into another one at full speed!
And why haven't they been able to fix that signal over the last four days? It could have been two different problems, I suppose, but that seems unlikely.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Did your train bypass Ruggles entirely, running down the Fairmount line instead? If not, I don't understand why a signal problem would prevent a station stop.
No, it went through Ruggles - but not on the track next to the platform. It did the same thing on Friday, too.
Both days they announced it after leaving Dedham Corporate Center/128 (which is the one right before the Ruggles stop), so maybe they thought they could get the train on the right track...or maybe they just didn't want to give passengers more warning of the change.
They may also have decided that it makes more sense to have passengers backtrack two stops on the Orange Line (from Back Bay) than to make them wait at Dedham for the next train.
the signal problem is Amtrak's fault and not the MBTA. Without signals, you can't do much on the RR. I heard of the problem and if the signals at the interlocking were acting up, then you can't get trains to switch tracks there to access the Ruggles platform. With those signals out, trains would have to operate on a RULE 241, pass a stop signal, and proceed at restricted speed until Back Bay, which would put any train a good 20-30 late, but if you skip Ruggles, you solve the problem
Post a Comment