Saturday April 4th was not a good day for a number Commuter Rail lines as there was a fire along the tracks near Forest Hills that knocked out the signal system.
As we were taking a day trip to Boston on Amtrak using 150 north, we were annulled at Providence, and directed to Commuter Rail train 1806 to get to Boston.
Kudos to the crew of 1806, they wound up with the patrons from a sold out Amtrak train, along with their own patrons, and the trip took close to 2 hours due to speed restrictions, and having to wait for the green light to be routed via the Fairmont Line. In our SRO car the conductor kept walking through to give us updates.
Trying to get info from Amtrak on status of afternoon return trips did not go well, and no one from Julie, to their call center staff, to their agents at Back Bay seemed to know what was going on.
Commuter Rail on the other hand had staff at Back Bay to help patrons work around the disruption.
Lastly, I give the commuter rail crew credit for having the patience of Jobe, when it came to the foamers at the Attleboro station, I don't know if that is a regular thing but there was quite a contingent of them Saturday, and we wound up stopping 3 times after the first highball as they kept yelling that the train was leaving people behind. The first extra stop was warranted, but the other 2 were just a waste of time. To the foamers, if train watching is your thing, fine, but don't interfere with operations.
Ken
As we were taking a day trip to Boston on Amtrak using 150 north, we were annulled at Providence, and directed to Commuter Rail train 1806 to get to Boston.
Kudos to the crew of 1806, they wound up with the patrons from a sold out Amtrak train, along with their own patrons, and the trip took close to 2 hours due to speed restrictions, and having to wait for the green light to be routed via the Fairmont Line. In our SRO car the conductor kept walking through to give us updates.
Trying to get info from Amtrak on status of afternoon return trips did not go well, and no one from Julie, to their call center staff, to their agents at Back Bay seemed to know what was going on.
Commuter Rail on the other hand had staff at Back Bay to help patrons work around the disruption.
Lastly, I give the commuter rail crew credit for having the patience of Jobe, when it came to the foamers at the Attleboro station, I don't know if that is a regular thing but there was quite a contingent of them Saturday, and we wound up stopping 3 times after the first highball as they kept yelling that the train was leaving people behind. The first extra stop was warranted, but the other 2 were just a waste of time. To the foamers, if train watching is your thing, fine, but don't interfere with operations.
Ken