MBCR Comedy

On January 6th I got one of the funnier emails that the MBCR has created so far. It included the following gem:

"Please enter and exit only through a door that is attended by a crewmember."

Apparently whoever writes those emails has never actually ridden the commuter rail. Because if that rule were ever enforced, every train in the entire system would be consistently 20 minutes late, or more, every day. Why? Because each train would have only one working door.

There AREN'T conductors at most doors - ever. I haven't exited a door on the evening train once since I got that letter that had a conductor within two coachlengths. Today I looked around, out of curiousity. For the five-coach train (three singles, two doubles) there was exactly ONE conductor visible.

If they're providing enough conductors to be at each pair of doors on each train, I don't know where those conductors are disappearing to! But it seems more likely that MBCR management is shorting the trains and the public of the staff needed to carry their own rules. This way, when something goes horribly wrong, they can point to this email and say "See? We told people not to use unsupervised doors!".

Open Thread

I haven't seen any problems on the T since my last post; in fact, the Ruggles station stairway actually opened this week, after two years of being locked.

Someone I know told me about a problem with a long ramp at one of the Attleborough (or possibly South Attleborough) commuter rail stops. After someone committed suicide on the tracks last month, everyone was moved out of her train and along a long two-story ramp. As she was walking, she thought she had suddenly gotten dizzy. Then she realized that in fact, the ramp was swaying pretty violently. It looked rusty and not well-maintained, she said. I hope to get her story in more detail later.

BostonNOW! ran a story about this blog today: In HOT pursuit . I'm not sure why "hot" was capitalized; I thought for a minute it might be an acronym.

Just to be clear, this blog is for ANY issues about the commuter rail, not just air conditioning problems. I started this because it seemed that the MBCR just didn't take passenger complaints (excuse me, "concerns") seriously, and that one of these days there would be a disaster. A medical emergency on 7/13 convinced me that it was time to say something about it publicly.

If you're a commuter rail passenger and would like posting privileges, please let me know in a comment or email me and I'll gladly add you. Otherwise, anyone (except spammers) is free to post their commuter rail stories in comments. Stories about other T services (subway, bus, ferries, and facilities) are perfectly okay to post too, of course!

Welcome!

This is an open blog for comments from passengers on the Massachusetts commuter rail system (which is administered by the MBCR under the auspices of the MBTA). This blog is unofficial and in no way endorsed by or connected with the MBTA, MBCR, or any other organization.

All contents are the property of the author(s). If you want posting privileges, please comment and I'll add you to the list of authors.