Red Line Derailment South of Alewife (12/22/09)

After that review a few months ago and the damaged walls at Porter, is anybody surprised this happened: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaki ... rep_2.html

and still no service alert...

Could this and yesterday's porter affair finally convince the local pols to enact comprehensive maintenance on the NW red line segment?

My dad is stuck on a red line train right now because of that derailment. If they make any announcements he will let me know and I will let the forum know.

diburning wrote:My dad is stuck on a red line train right now because of that derailment. If they make any announcements he will let me know and I will let the forum know.

EDIT: He's home now so I think they're clearing up the delays.

At 4:35pm I went down to Kendall/MIT inbound, and saw the platform wall-to-wall people. The speakers were blaring about busing between Harvard and Alewife, and "significant delays" in service. (At least it wasn't a Celtics star reminding us to be safe.)

I bet the only reason there were no deaths or serious injuries is because they're already moving 5 MPH due to passing through the riskiest section of subway in the world.

How much longer until the entire system spontaneously implodes?


EDIT: And here's the MBTA service alert which according to comments on that article, didn't come up until after 5:00 PM (note the MBTA's given date!):

Red Line due to a disabled train at Alewife Station service will be suspended at Harvard Station. Substitute bus service will accommodate passengers from Harvard to Alewife both inbound and outbound making all station stops. 12/22/2009 4:16 PM

Apparently it was a set of 01800s involved - NETransit already is listing 01878-01879 out of service for derailment damage.

Further proof that the MBTA cannot continue to function as it exists now. If this happened at 49 mph we'd be looking at a tragic situation.

So will the faulty wheel bearings on the Orange Line (now 10% beyond their 1,000,0000 mile design life) or deteriorating track conditions on the Red cause the next derailment? Only time will tell.

This is the fault of politicians who would rather expand than maintain the current system. And when I went down to the Kendall station at 5:30 it was still wall-to-wall people. It wasn't until around 5:50pm that they started to finally clear out the mess.

One can only imagine how crowded it would have been if this has happened on a work day when 30% weren't already on vacation.

Service is still incredibly slow, especially if trains are being turned at Harvard. Going northbound from South Station at about 11:15pm, the train was standing by for a few minutes at every station. I gave up at Kendall and took a taxi to Harvard, trying but failing to catch up with the bus.

They were holding all outbound Fitchburg trains 15 mins at the end of rush hour and all evening for bus connections. I was on trains #437 and went up stairs to see the busing. I spotted two Silver Line Artics running. One was a dual mode, it would have been cool if they put the poles up

sery2831 wrote:They were holding all outbound Fitchburg trains 15 mins at the end of rush hour and all evening for bus connections. I was on trains #437 and went up stairs to see the busing. I spotted two Silver Line Artics running. One was a dual mode, it would have been cool if they put the poles up

Would the Silverline buses be able to run on the catenary (if that's the right term for electric bus wires) at Harvard or are they set up for a different configuation? Obviously it wouldn't do much in this situation since the electric bus route doesn't go to Alewife.

They would be able to run on the over head. It's trolley wire, not catenary. I believe the dual modes have a governed speed when it is in electric mode to keep the speeds down in the tunnel to South Station, but I could be wrong on that.

Everything still screwed up when I went home at 8:30. Boarded at Kendall outbound, where the doors were already held open when I arrived. Waited 10 more minutes. On to Central. Doors stayed open for about 12 minutes. Then crawled halfway to Harvard before, oddly, gunning it through the crossover and going wrong-rail into Harvard inbound. First time I'd ever done that, and it's actually a faster trip around the curve than outbound. I think they were only using Harvard inbound to turn trains from the number of T employees stationed at the bottom of the outbound side ramp waving people to the shuttle buses. So only one train could be on the tracks after Central and that was backing everything up. Thru service was running Ashmont-only, with Braintree short-turning at JFK and requiring a transfer.

Crowds were pretty thin by that point so most people got the message.