Strange morning, courtesy of the MBCR

Strange things were happening on the #708 train out of Franklin this morning. It was a double train, with an engine in the middle; I heard that the prior train had broken down, and was being pushed along.

I also saw my first "wrapped" coach, a double that had been turned into a huge advertisement for some bank. Here's a photo:

On the train, a woman had a large brown dog sitting on the seat next to her. It was some sort of hound, and was letting out a near-continuous high-pitched whine. I didn't see anything to indicate that it was a service dog. I couldn't tell if a ticket had been purchased for it, although it was using a full seat and it was VERY crowded on the train that morning. People were jammed in the aisles.

The train was due in at Ruggles at 7:50 AM, but didn't arrive until 8:24. So accordingly I put in for the on-time guarantee. I guess that will make up for the $8.75 I was charged for forgetting to change my pass on the 1st!

The stairway at Ruggles continues to deteriorate. Intriguing deep holes are opening up in the sides of it:

A week ago I saw that the afternoon Providence train (stopping at Ruggles on the outbound trip at roughly 3:56 PM) was incredibly crowded. People were jammed into the vestibule areas, between coaches - the areas with signs that say "PASSENGERS ARE NOT PERMITTED TO RIDE IN THE VESTIBULE". I counted at least ten people in one vestibule, and more than that in two others.

I also had an interesting ride home last week; when I got on the coach, it was pitch black inside. I mean really black; the only light came from a laptop that some guy was using down at the other end of the coach.

It was eerie! The power came back after about fifteen minutes, though.

Mysterious Thing

It's boring, waiting for the train at Ruggles in the evening, so once again I was looking at the stairs. The disintegration continues, but today I saw something new:

What IS that thing? It looks like a heavy cable, almost like a motorcycle lock, clamped around the base of the stair railing - and the other end goes into the concrete. Where the insulation doesn't cover it, it's clearly a multiple-wire cable. It can't be electrical. It doesn't look as if it has any structural purpose - how could it be holding anything in place? It's not tightly attached! Why does it go into the cement? Does anyone know?

There's another cable just like it on the other side of the stairs, by the way.

You might have noticed that there are bricks missing at the left-hand bottom side of the base of the stairs now. Here's a better shot:

Could the cable be some sort of temporary thing, like a clamp to hold things in place? It really doesn't look like it to me.

Crumbling stairs

Last December I wrote about the crumbling stairs to the commuter rail platform at Ruggles.

Here's what they look like today, Thursday July 30th. Click on the photos to enlarge them:

As you can see, the stairs are falling apart. And here's a view of the wall on the other side of the stairs; the damage isn't as obvious, but if you take a close look, I think you'll see signs that the wall is starting to bulge outwards...

That can't be good!

Trouble With A Capital T

Things haven't changed much on the Franklin commuter line.

There've been some late trains, and I've collected a few free tickets. The stairs at the Ruggles station are still crumbling. In the last couple of months there have been several times on the outbound #717 train (departing South Station at 4:20 PM) when no doors were opened on either side of two adjacent cars; twice I saw passengers who weren't able to get off the train at their stops, and ended up being carried along to the next station unwillingly. I tried to help one of them by opening the door and stairs myself, but by the time I'd noticed her plight and gotten the door open, the train was already in motion. There was, of course, no conductor around.

Today was pretty special, though. The morning #708 train was going very slowly. There were a couple of announcements; the #704 was disabled, and the #706 was joining up with it to push it out of the way. We were supposed to arrive at Ruggles at 7:50 AM, but we got there at 8:25 instead.

When we got there, people lined up to get out. But the lines didn't move in my coach. The doors were shut, and the passengers who were trying to open the doors...couldn't. They said they were stuck. I was far back in the line myself, or I would have given it a try. Needless to say, there was no conductor in sight.

We all turned around and started rushing down the coach to the next set of doors. But we hadn't reached them before we all realized that the train was moving, picking up speed. There was a univeral groan.

Fortunately someone reached a conductor, and the train finally stopped. We were well down the long Ruggles platform by then; all but two coaches were past the barrier that blocks off the crumbling, unused half of the platform (I'll get a photo of that soon, if I can - update: got it). We stepped out onto a continuous sheet of thick ice. Since it was an off-limits area, it had never been salted or sanded. We had to squeeze carefully around the wooden barrier, with no more than a few feet of clearance between the barrier and the train. It was a tight fit for some! And it may have been worse for the people on the other side, since if they slipped they wouldn't have the train as a backstop - they'd have ended up falling straight down onto the tracks. Luckily, no one slipped.

Here's a shot that I took of the closed platform that afternoon. It had been a relatively warm day, and the sun had melted some of the ice since that morning. But even so, there was a lot left! By the way, that half of the platform has been closed for as long as I can remember - years, at least. It's crumbling badly.

It could have been worse, of course - we could have been forced to get off at Back Bay instead, and been even more late. As it was, I got into work 40 minutes late. I later heard that people on the #704 train had had a two-hour delay!

P.S. - I've been told a great story that I hope to be able to post soon. The T apparently mailed out some duplicate letters and tickets for their On-Time Guarantee, and they're handling the issue remarkably poorly - even for the T. One suggestion: check your O-TG letters for duplicate numbers. If you find some, don't try to cash in duplicates at the same time. More on this later, I hope!

Parking

As you may have heard, parking is about to change at commuter rail lots. It's going up from $2 per day to $4 per day. But nobody seems to have told the people who write the schedules. The new October 27th, 2008 pocket schedule for the Franklin line still lists the parking cost as "easy and inexpensive...at only $2 per day".

It should be no surprise that there has been a lot of talk among passengers about the increase. Everyone I've spoken to is pretty pissed off. A 100% increase? That's steep, even in this economy!

It's also going to be pretty inconvenient. Ever tried to push four individually-folded dollar bills through one of those little payment slots? It can be done, of course, but it takes time. And just try doing it when the train is about to leave!

Of course you may prefer to pay with 16 quarters instead...

Another odd thing: the penalty fee. It used to be $0.75, but from what I've heard, it's only going up to a dollar. Why are those who follow the rules going to be stuck with a 100% increase, while those who skip paying only have a 25% increase? Is the T trying to reward people for not paying?

The Mystery Train

My inbound commute this morning inspired the following poem:

The Mystery Train

The Mystery Train is a train of excitement,
With windows so clouded that you cannot see
Which station you're passing - or IF there's a station,
Or where in the world you might happen to be.

You stare in confusion at windows so frosted
An x-ray machine couldn't peer through the haze.
Is my stop coming up? Or have I just passed it?
Or am I a minotaur lost in a maze?

The conductors all thoughtfully aid in the mystery,
Never breathing a word which might pierce that dark veil
Where is the train going? Are we passing a station?
Was that blob Back Bay station, or was it Montvale?

If YOU want to ride on a train full of mystery
They're rolling along on the tracks every day
You might never get to the place you were going,
But that's how it is on the MBTA.

Silent Stops and Secret Stations

No major issues lately, but there are still a few things to write about.

There was a bit of a stir on the inbound Franklin #710 train this morning (08/06/2008). After the Readville stop, the conductor announced over the intercom that the next stop would be Back Bay. Since the train was supposed to stop at Ruggles, this caused a bit of a stir.

The train sometimes skips Ruggles due to track problems, so the announcement seemed unusual but not impossible. They're supposed to announce that they're skipping Ruggles, of course, but they don't always do that.

In the end, they stopped at Ruggles after all; the announcement must have just been a slip of the tongue by the conductor. So no free tickets today.

I did cash in five free tickets recently, and was annoyed at the attitude of the guy behind the counter (at Back Bay). He insisted that all three letters had to be pre-signed before I got to the window, and I had to be at the window with my driver's license, tickets, and letters all in hand. Time was short, but after waiting through the line the first time I had to go out, sign and arrange everything, and go through the line a second time. It wasn't a terribly long line, so I'd guess that the clerk was just being officious for the hell of it.

Speaking of silent stops, conductors have been particularly silent at Ruggles lately. They often don't bother to announce the destination of the train, and sometimes they don't even step out on the platform! Since the trains have been more and more erratic, time-wise (they can vary from the schedule by five minutes or more) this is particularly worrisome. Often passengers have to go into a train and ask the passengers inside where the train is going.

A few quick notes:

Smelly Car - A coach on the Franklin line had an unusual problem: it stank. It wasn't a bathroom car, but it smelled like sewage for the entire trip. This caused a "hot car" effect; passengers avoided that car and piled into the other ones. Unfortunately I didn't note the train number (it was a later-evening outbound run), but I think the coach might have been #604.

Hefty hefty hefty! - MBTA head Dan Grabauskas announced via cellphone from his luxury state-supplied SUV¹ that T riders would be facing "hefty" fare increases in 2010 unless the Legislature took action. I'd predicted that he'd jump the increase forward to 2009, so I guess I was wrong about that. But I have to wonder what he means by "hefty". Recent increases have been in the 25-27% range; what could a hefty increase look like? I'm guessing 40% or more, but please feel free to put your own guess as a comment. The winner will receive a free luxury SUV, fueled and paid for by the taxpayers of Massachusetts².

Wall Street Journal story - A couple of months ago I was interviewed several times about the commuter rail system by Alex Roth of the Wall Street Journal. Here's a link to a copy of the story: Riders Swamp Public Transit. I imagine we'll hear a lot more about the strain of increasing ridership on public transportation over the years to come.

Late! - I was chatting with an experienced passenger, and she pointed out something that I hadn't really noticed: the trains have been late a lot, for a long time now. Not necessarily by a lot, and not by that golden 30 minutes that means a free ticket, but the trains are regularly five to fifteen minutes late by the time they reach the end of the line. I don't think we've actually arrived exactly on time in months. But just because I'm me, I'm going to start tracking arrival times on the Franklin #715. It will be interesting to have some solid data to post.

Oh, a quick shout-out to the women I talked to on the train this morning. Hi!

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1 - Okay, I don't know that he made the announcement from the SUV, but I couldn't resist mentioning that little perk of his.
2 - Offer will not be honored. No free SUV for you!

Bird Crap Story

The bird crap was still piling high on the evening of Tuesday, February 6th. The next evening I noticed that it had finally been cleaned.

I first posted about the guano-covered escalator on January 3rd, and of course the problem had been building up long before that. It took the T 35 days (or more) to get the escalator cleaned.

It took the birds far less time to cover it with crap again.

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!