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Smokey train puts a damper on the Red Line

The Braintree train was taken out of service at South Station; now the Red Line has "severe" delays.

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I was on that train. Came to a sudden stop partway between DTX and South Station. Sat for a few minutes. Then all of a sudden the smell of smoke, and within seconds it was clear that the air was filling up with smoke.

People were hitting the emergency buttons, but we were not getting what seemed like any immediate responses - certainly no one was saying anything to us. After a minute or so, it seemed like the air conditioning (?) came on to try to help manage the smoke, and it did seem to work.

Then, finally, a "disabled train" announcement, and I'd say maybe 5 minutes later or so (maybe a bit longer), we were moving again. Pulling into South Station, we were not only greeted by the throngs waiting on the platform, but a swath of firemen as well, who then spent a few minutes inspecting the train before letting it go.

Then, a "there's a train at Downtown Crossing now and it will be arriving momentarily, than you for your patience" announcement. But It seemed a good 5-10 minutes before that train showed up.

Perhaps the smoke was no big deal after all, but we certainly didn't know that when it was happening. The frightening part was that we didn't seem to be getting any sort of response to the emergency calls - we didn't even know if anyone was aware of the issue, isolated in our own little world in there. A disabled train I can understand. The lack of any sort of affirmation that we were trying to contact someone I do not understand at all. THAT has to be fixed. SOMEONE should be required by law to respond back at least to say "yes, we heard you, and help is on the way."

Wow.

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It was a blown breaker on one of the cars. With only a one person crew, the motorperson was busy resetting the breaker to get the smoke to subside. Unless they want to put door attendants back on the trains, it is difficult for a one person crew to deal with resolving the smoke problem while also making announcements to the passengers.

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My impression was that most other public transportation systems don't have door attendents. That's why they were eliminated here. How do other systems resolve problems that require an additional helping hand?

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... one man crews were a bad idea?

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Excuses excuses. Not answering is a perfect way of causing a panic which could result I. A far more serious situation.

Then again, maybe an announcement was made and the PA system wasn't working in the cars. That's pretty common too.

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"Not answering is a perfect way of causing a panic which could result [in a] far more serious situation."

That's it exactly,. Now, I will say that the people on our car remained relatively sane. But had the smoke been any more intense or had it gone on longer, I can't say we all would have been as calm.

A simple PA announcement acknowledging the smoke issue and assuring us that it was being taken care of would have sufficed. What does that take - 5 seconds? For all we knew, no one outside of our car - not the whole train, but even just our car - knew that we felt in potential danger.

And yes - it's clear to me that eliminating crew is a horrible blunder.

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Who has scarier rides the T or Six flags?

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Damn you Old Man Winter!!!

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