Throngs of people filled Boston to see the victory parade for the Celtics today, so perhaps it was inevitable that there would be problems on the Franklin #715.
The train itself was packed, with lots of teenagers wearing green. The aisles were crowded with standees, although I didn't see anyone in the vestibules themselves.
Shortly after the Norwood Depot stop, the train came to a halt. We were stuck on the short length of track between Norwood Depot and Norwood Central, directly next to a McDonald's. It wasn't long before the smell from the McDonald's became sheer torture.
After a while there was an announcement that the train was waiting for an inbound train to pass, after which we'd start right up again. So we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
For half an hour.
I saw six teens jump off the train and walk down the track towards Norwood Central. And since I was roughly in the middle of the train, the odds are that more jumped off and I didn't see them. Not to mention that I could only see one side of the train; I don't know if anyone jumped off on the other side.
When the train finally started up again, it went at a crawl for a long time. It was scheduled to arrive at Franklin/Dean, my destination, at 5:10 PM; we ended up pulling into the station at 5:49 PM, a full 39 minutes late. So in the last six days the T has failed to make their on-time performance guarantee three times. Now that I think of it, that's a pretty awful record!
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2 comments:
Yes many trains were absolutely stuffed with fans today making operation difficult. The franklin line has been way off for the last month or two due to the track work they are doing. During certain hours they have to bus people across a gap where boards are being replaced under the track rails (currently the work is after the Walpole station heading out). Even when they resume "normal operations", some inbound/outbound trains are thrown off scheduele by delays where they have to allow other off-scheduele trains to pass by on a particular branch - Thus the frequent delays.
The Worcester line was also packed yesterday. And the problematic bridge connecting Beverly and Salem decided to go into a fritz yesterday.
Not a good day for promoting mass transit.
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