Keolis says MBTA kept it from hiring somebody to oversee train maintenance
CommonWealth Magazine gets ahold of a letter from the company's then chief executive to T officials asking them to stop trying to scare off his candidates for chief maintenance officer, a position that went unfilled for months last year.
The letter said part of the delay in finding a chief maintenance officer was caused by T officials pressuring Keolis to hire the person who held that job with the previous operator of the commuter rail. The letter also said Reddell felt T officials tried to scare him off by asking him if he "really knew what he was getting into" and mentioning the possibility that Keolis "was at risk of being defaulted in early 2015."
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I'll re-ask the question I asked weeks ago
Is the problem with the commuter rail Keolis? or is the problem with the MBTA?
I only ask because, as I've stated before, other CR operations that use Keolis USA have virtually none of the same issues we do and they get accolades for their service.
So is the problem Keolis? or the way the relationship between the MBTA and Keolis?
This article is revealing to me on what the answer to the question is..
Sounds like the MBTA has
some splaining to do.
Not only is that pretty infuriating,
but it seems like it's probably just the tip of the iceberg:
What's hiding behind the $39,000 excuse, I wonder?
I'm not sure where to put
I'm not sure where to put this, since it is MBTA-related, but I had to share it on this site. I get on my regular 76 bus home to Lexington from Alewife last night at 6:45. Halfway through the ride, on Mass. Ave, the driver pulls over and announces the bus is "low on fuel" and that there will be another bus coming to pick us up and continue the ride. We're all in disbelief that this driver let this actually happen. I am looking confused, and the driver tells me that a light went on saying he was low on fuel, but that otherwise the bus doesn't have a fuel gage. I will repeat: THE BUS DOES NOT HAVE A FUEL GAGE.
Pathetic. Simply pathetic. of course, I ended up talking to a FB friend who is a T employee, who laughed and assured me that the buses have fuel gages. So I have no idea if or why the driver was lying, but since this has never happened to me on any bus I've ridden - and I've ridden a lot of busses - that the driver simply ran out of gas, I am really tempted to write a letter to the Globe about it. I thought seeing a giant HOLE in the side of the bus where part of the door used to be was sad enough, but this is just beyond pathetic. Just because they haven't had a snowstorm in a while and service appears to be running normally doesn't mean the problems are fixed.
Maybe the driver wasn't lying
Maybe the driver wasn't lying, but meant to say the gauge was broken.
A bus really shouldn't run out of gas. They fill it up every night, and it should hold more than enough for a full day.
Keep in mind that the former
Keep in mind that the former contractor, MBCR, was run by former commuter rail managers. I wouldn't be surprised if they're friends with their counterparts at the T.