According to this Boston Globe news story, a D train derailed near Riverside this morning. No one was injured but trains will be replaced by shuttle buses between Riverside and Newton Highlands
MBTA Green Line train derails in Newton
by Gail Spector | Aug 7, 2019 | MBTA, Newton | 10 comments
I just got back from dropping my daughter off for the bus to NYC. What a nightmare. Hundreds of people late to work, a dozen diesel spewing buses lined up waiting for passengers and dozens more stuck in traffic waiting to get in, a police officer stopping cars trying to get into Riverside (what happens to the park and drive people?).
We need to stop fixing out 105 year old train system and replace it.
It’s not a matter of money it’s a matter of priorities.
Actually Lucia it’s mostly a matter of capacity. You can’t just replace — or quickly fix — a system without shutting it down. And we all know how horrid it would be to shut down entire train lines for many, many months. Also, the T suffers from the same sort of talent shortages that many of the region’s employers do. There’s not enough labor — from project planners and engineers to construction workers and flagmen — to do all the work we need to do.
I don’t believe I ever said it would be quick and easy!
Apparently this was not an equipment problem. It was a fairly new driver (started in March) who proceeded before he had proper signal authorization.
https://boston.cbslocal.com/2019/08/07/mbta-green-line-train-derailment-newton-massachusetts-riverside-station/
Maybe this time it was the driver’s fault, but the MBTA’s own data show the Green line with the worst reliability ratings out of the 4 lines (red, orange, blue & green). Between Oct. 2017 & Oct. 2018, the red, orange and blue lines had a reliability ratings between 90-95%. The green line’s ratings were 75-80%. (ie the train showed up 8 times out of 10 when expected).
https://www.ctps.org/data/pdf/plans/LRTP/destination/Destination-2040-Needs-Assessment-draft.pdf
Operator error has been the cause of most recent green line incidents, I think. Would positive train control have prevented these errors? If so, we can go back to blaming inadequate infrastructure.
The Green Line’s also the only line that’s mostly above ground. Many (though certainly not all) delays are caused by things on the track such as trees or tree limbs (think of what happens after almost every storm) or vehicles (the UniversalHub blog regularly posts notices of cars or trucks getting stuck on the tracks) or the like.
I’ve been riding the D Line since I used it and a connecting bus to get to Tufts from Newton in the late 1950s. Nothing about the overall system has really changed since then. There were derailments then as there are now and the entire Green Line service from outlying communities to Park Street continues to be hampered by the fact that four separate lines funnel into one central and winding tunnel system that magnifies the odds of frequent derailments and equipment breakdowns. Despite the addition of new equipment and technology, the overall infrastructure still has the feel of an antiquated and fragile system. Rush hour is already a mess and I can only guess at the added burden new riders from the Northland and Riverside projects will have on other commuters trying to squeeze onto the cars between Chestnut Hill and Park Street. I know improvements have been promised, but I wonder about the sequence of prospective new riders from Riverside, Northland and other proposed developments hitting the D Line with when the timed improvements and upgrades to the system will be completed. I’d like to be optimistic, but as I noted earlier, I’ve been riding this system since before many of you were even born. That leaves me a bit skeptical how this will all fit comfortably together.
If Rosie Ruiz were using the T to “help” her run the Marathon now instead of 1980, she never would have made it in time to “win.”
BB,
And then there’s texting…