Ruggles: For the Birds

Here's why you should always stay in the center of the escalator at Ruggles, and never, ever touch the handrails no matter what the safety signs say:

I had to take this from above and the view is limited, but basically a large area of the escalator (and of some of the staircases) is absolutely covered with bird crap every day. I suppose someone must be cleaning it up at least once in a while. But basically the area is always filthy.

Call them...unreliable

Last night something was seriously screwed up at South Station. I don't know what happened, but I saw the effects down-track at Ruggles.

Nothing came in when or where it was supposed to. The Needham Heights train that shows up at Ruggles at 4:13 PM...didn't. Trains came at the wrong time, half an hour late or more.

And in every single case the conductors didn't bother to announce what the train was.

Some of these trains were coming in within a few minutes of the arrival time of a completely different train. You'd think that conductors would realize that people would be confused, and would announce the destination. But they didn't.

We passengers had to run up and down the station platform every time, looking for a conductor to tell us where the train was going. And even then, most of the conductors still didn't bother to make the announcements. Passengers had to pass the word along instead.

I understand that the conductors and their union are pissed off at the MBCR and the MBTA, but why do they have to take it out on the passengers? Are they under the delusion that we have any influence at all over the management of the T? Because it has been made more than amply clear that we don't. T management couldn't be less responsive to the needs, concerns, and even the basic health and safety of the ridership. We're cattle, existing solely to be moved from one point to another and to pay our ever-increasing fares.

That is, sometimes we pay. Last night no fares were collected; we didn't see a conductor in the train from the time I got on at Ruggles to the time I got off at Franklin/Dean College. This may seem odd, since the T is so desperately hard up for funds, but I've talked to a lot of passengers and it's not all that rare.

The Franklin #715 arrived at Ruggles 17 minutes late, on the wrong side of the tracks. It reached Franklin/Dean fifteen minutes late.

Tonight (12/19/2007) the #715 ran on time, but the train was having some pretty serious electrical problems. The lights and air circulation kept going out. Everything would simply go dead, for a moment, with even the emergency lights off; it was absolutely pitch black. Then a few of the emergency lights would go on, not really bright enough to read by. A minute or two later the lights and heat would come back up, only to fail again within minutes.

This happened over and over and over, at least eight or nine times.

What next, I wonder?

No Break for Franklin Riders!

It turned out that a few days of having an extra coach on the Franklin #715 train was NOT a harbinger of good things to come. Instead, it was the harbinger of doom.

Not only is the train back to six single-level coaches (at most), but they've put the worst conductor in the entire system back onto that run. He's the angry, rage-filled conductor; the rudest conductor I've ever seen. We'd all hoped that we'd seen the last of him when he disappeared about two years ago, but he's back.

The MBCR has, of course, been having a lot of problems lately. The conductor's union has reportedly been engaging in an unofficial slowdown, "working to the rules" in order to reduce the timeliness of the entire system to 84%. That's the worst performance of any commuter rail system in American, apparently.

I've certainly seen a difference. On almost every train one of the two doors and stairwells is now closed and unusable. I haven't seen any conductors complain if a passenger opens a closed stairwell, though, so at least that's a positive thing.

There was an article recently reporting that South Station trains have the worst record in the system. It's nice to have confirmation of what I suspected, although I wish that wasn't necessary.

Trains have been late more often than usual, and the Franklin #715 continues to be jam-packed every evening. There are, as always, ten or more standees per coach, and they stand for 25 minutes or longer.

In fact, for several days I took the extra time to go to South Station and board the train there rather than at Ruggles, just to be able to get a seat. I had a long-term medical test done (the results came in and I'm fine), and standing for long periods was extremely uncomfortable. I've also been going home at different times thanks to the weather and other circumstances of the season; most other Franklin trains that I've taken have considerably more capacity than the #715, for some reason, so I haven't had much to report.

But I've heard a number of stories from other passengers about terrible service on the line. It would seem that things just won't change under the MBCR. And since the MBTA just re-signed the MBCR to a three-year management contract, the future does not look bright.

The worst service in the nation (I got four free tickets recently for trains that were more than half an hour late), undoubtedly thousands of passenger complaints...and the MBTA rewards the MBCR.

Talk about taxation without representation! At this point, I have to wonder if passengers will just have to rise up and throw the management of both the MBCR and the MBTA into Boston Harbor.

A break for Franklin riders?

On the last two days, the Franklin #715 has had a double-level coach in the place of one of the usual single-level coaches. The results have been startling. A few people have had to stand, but the number is far fewer than usual. I myself got a seat twice in a row at Ruggles, which was such an unexpected development that at first I didn't realize what was happening.

The riders I spoke to were delighted. We don't know if this is a permanent change, but we're certainly hoping that it is!

More fun on the Franklin line

The T is really on a roll lately, and I don't mean that in a good way.

I thought that I'd seen the maximum crowding on the 4:10 PM #715 Franklin train last night - at least 170 people packed into a single coach. But tonight, Halloween night, it had to be a lot closer to 180 - and this time, the "no passengers" vestibules between the coaches were packed solid as well.

How do I know? Because I was one of the 16 people packed into one of the vestibules.

I was jammed up against the door, and for the first half of the ride I was the de-facto conductor. When people wanted to get off, I opened the door, pulled up the platform to expose the stairs down, got off to let people off (a lot of them thanked me and joked about the crowding - some said I should be getting paid by the T), and then came back on, only to start the whole thing over at the next stop.

I got off at Franklin Dean - one stop short of the end of the line. And for the entire trip I didn't see one single conductor until I actually made it off the train at Franklin.

This overcrowding is getting absolutely insane. I'll make a prediction right now: if the #715 Franklin train has an accident people are going to die (or at least be seriously injured) unnecessarily. Because the Franklin #715 is regularly crowded beyond all reasonable safety standards.

I wrote to Governor Patrick's office; they passed the buck to the T. And I notified the T management more than once. They just won't DO anything about it.

The T's Two-fer

It's strange. Every time that I put up a post noting that things have been going pretty well on the T, inevitably there's a day of terrible service within the week.

But yesterday was pretty exceptional.

It was Red Sox parade day, so I was expecting the train to be packed with screeching Red Sox fans, most of 'em teenagers. That's par for the course. What I wasn't expecting was that the #708 Franklin train (departing Forge Park at 7:00 AM)...wouldn't show up.

There was a clue pretty early that something was wrong: the electric station signs weren't scrolling the usual garbage, but instead kept scrolling "Franklin Dean Station". I tried calling the former SmartTraveler (which seems to have been taken over by the Massachusetts state government - it's now "511", and I imagine that unlike SmartTraveler, the call now does use up my cell minutes), and got the helpful message that there were no problems on the commuter rail.

After the train was about twenty minutes late, the sign finally came up with a message that there were mechanical problems and would be delays. I called SmartTraveler/511 back and told an operator there that they needed to fix that status message.

A train finally came in from the Boston direction. It pulled into Franklin Dean. There were no announcements, no conductors to be seen. It was pretty chilly, though, so everybody just got on and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

After quite a while the train started up and headed back towards Boston. I had to wonder what happened to the people who were stranded at Forge Park!

The train moved slowly, and stopped at all the stops; the 708 is an "express", but when a train has effectively been pushed back on the schedule, they make all the stops. It was jammed pretty full too, with lots of Sox-apparel-wearing teens giggling up a storm.

The train was supposed to arrive at Ruggles at 7:50 AM, but it actually arrived at 8:55 AM. Free ticket for me!

You think I'm done? You think that's the end of the story? HA!

That evening, things were still clearly screwed up on the commuter rail. The usual Needham train did not pull into the station at 4:13 PM. Instead, a very large train of six or seven double-decker cars pulled in at around 4:17 on that track.

The conductors must have all had laryngitis, though, because none of us heard even ONE of them say what train it was. Since something was clearly amiss, a bunch of us regular Franklin train riders went searching the length of the platform for a conductor. I finally found one who told me that the mystery train was going to...Providence!

Which means that the schedule was totally screwed up. Funny, the conductor didn't sound hoarse at all...

A few minutes later (literally) the Needham train pulled in on the same track, and the fine conductors of that train showed everybody how it really should be done. "Needham! Needham train!" several of them shouted over and over. They really did a fine job.

At around 4:30, the Franklin #715 train finally pulled in. We all hopped on. It was jammed beyond all sanity, though; even the alcoves between the cars (where passengers are forbidden to ride) had lots of standees. I managed to get into one of the coaches, and saw something that I'd never seen before.

Almost every possible square inch of standing space was occupied. And two of the three-person seats had four adults in them, and one of the two-person seats had three people! They were Red Sox fans, of course.

I counted as carefully as I could. I probably missed a few people; I definitely didn't overcount. But the coach itself was absolutely full, 122 people seated plus an additional three jammed in. Plus a minimum of 45 standees within the coach gives a total of of 170 people riding in a single coach rated for 122 passengers! If there had been an accident, we would have posted record casualties.

The no-passenger alcoves were also literally packed - I was able to count eleven people in one, but I'm sure I missed some.

The train moved slowly. If engines can feel pain, I imagine that this one did - it was a heavy load. And either the engineer was a rookie, or something was wrong with the engine; there were quite a few sudden jerks that would have knocked people off their feet, if they hadn't been packed in so tightly that falling down was impossible.

There were several long pauses along the way, and each station stop took a lot longer than it normally did. People almost had to climb over other passengers to get out, and there was a lot of pushing. Fortunately everyone remained in a good mood, and of course the Red Sox fans were practically giddy with delight.

Between the Walpole and Norfolk stops the train suddenly stopped. The lights went out. And in the dim light we could hear the AC whirring down into silence. The train was dead.

Cacophony.

We sat there in the woods for quite a while. Some kids tried to jump off the train; I heard conductors shouting at them loudly in the distance. Finally the train started up again, and there was an announcement that there had been a train stuck on the tracks ahead of us.

I'd planned to get off at Franklin/Dean, but since my wife was picking me up and had to go to get our son from day care before they closed, I got off at Forge Park (the end of the line) instead. The train had been scheduled to arrive there at 5:17 PM. It pulled in at 5:52 instead.

Two free tickets!

Then to cap things off, this morning the Franklin #710 (departing Forge Park at 7:45 AM) had all sorts of delays, and ended up pulling into Ruggles at 9:02 instead of the scheduled 8:42. It was less than half an hour, so no free ticket - but it was annoying.

Fun and Games

I hadn't seen anything major on the commuter rail in the past month or so, but last week there was something annoying.

I was on the Franklin 710 train (departing Forge Park at 7:45 AM). I'd missed the earlier train.

But when we got to the Ruggles stop, we...didn't. The train skipped the Ruggles stop completely, with no announcement in my coach. The next thing I knew we were stopping at Back Bay, with no explanation or apology from the conductors.

Incidentally, am I the only person who actually prefers not to get apologies from the conductors for things that aren't their fault? It's embarrassing. Why should they have to apologize because the MBTA or MBCR management screwed up? God knows that they almost never have to apologize - just as they never have to actually ride on the T.

Early the next week I was standing on the Ruggles outbound platform and talking to a woman about the T (what else am I going to talk about?). She'd also been on the same 710 train when it skipped Ruggles, and hadn't heard any announcement either. It was nice to get confirmation that I hadn't simply dozed off or something!

She also told me that the Franklin 737 train (departing South Station at 4:50 PM) had completely skipped Ruggles two or three times in the previous week (i.e. October 15-19). It's supposed to stop at Ruggles at 4:59 PM, but she said each time it just went right by. I don't take that train, so I didn't see that myself. But she seemed very credible.