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Red Line train goes down for the sleep eternal, Red Line riders' journeys become oh so infernal

Crammed in at South Station on the Red Line

David Finnerty had some time to get to know fellow riders at South Station.

A train died at Downtown Crossing around 5:30 p.m., as of 6:15 p.m., riders trying to head south were still being thwarted.

Mike Long reports his train just sat outside Charles/MGH for 10 minutes before finally pulling in.

Party Orca surveyed the human gridlock at Downtown Crossing:

Traffic onto the Red Line southbound at DTX is backed up to the escalator to Orange Line to Oak Grove. Turn back now and have a beer.

Great idea, thought MandaPaige, who decided not to descend into the hellmouth at South Station and instead bellied up to the new waiting-room bar for a beer.

Joel Pettigrew reminds us that something like this always happens the day the T proposes fare increases.

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Comments

Not sure why MBTA is saying southbound only as I can assure you, northbound is also effed. Just waited 12 minutes for a packed train at MGH.

So how bout dem fare hikes, sheeple?

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I don't know how much longer you can keep it up before repeating.

In other news, has anyone had a chance to experience the new passenger flows at State Street and Haymarket since the closure of Gov't Center? How have the first two days been?

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Government center closure makes my life so much easier. More trains on the green line to lechmere and north station repeating one after another giving me more seats available to sit and less crowded. Easy and fast ride from Park to haymarket w/out driver slamming on brakes before gov't center and about to fall over.

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And not every synonym for death has a rhyme that makes sense in this context :-).

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Train joins the bleedin' choir invisibule/Passengers clog up vestibule?

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Haymarket has been perfectly normal. Really don't see any difference except the new 608 bus making an occasional pass by.

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Something new this morning (which was not like this yesterday): they covered up 'Riverside' on the Haymarket sign. As seen here: http://instagram.com/p/mAQU9YzhtG/#

Riverside runs through Haymarket off-peak, though, which is something new. BC service still does not run through on a regular basis, but that is left exposed.

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The extent to which the MBTA just phones it in with the Green Line never ceases to amaze me.

I love the green sign at Forest Hills. No shame whatsoever.

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Does this happen primarily just at rush hour or is it just a coincidence because more people are there to notice? I seem to only read about rush hour delays....
I haven't taken the state street transfer; but, I have walked from park to Bowdoin. It has worked well for my red to blue commute.

As always, Adam, great reporting, you were right on top of it!!!

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My view is it doesn't happen just at rush hour but it happens more frequently. More trains = more chances for breakdowns. And with bigger crowds and tighter train schedules there are more people stuck on trains and also stuck waiting for trains until original issue is resolved. Rush hour red line trains south out of Park and DTX are often at sardine capacity. Any wrench in the work is like a pebble in the pond ripple effect, to mix metaphors.

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I was a passenger on the train they took out of service at DTX a little after 5:30. The "ripple effect" mentioned by another poster was definitely in play here. We had to ask people already waiting on the extremely crowded platform to make room just so that we could exit our car. After that, we could barely move, so we stayed where we were and waited for the next train to come. As people pushed to board *that* train, which was already packed of course, we were able to make our way out of the station and have impromptu drinks and dinner downtown. (So what if we didn't get home until well after 9:00 PM on a work night; I'd much rather that than be trapped in a situation like that - it wasn't safe, although thankfully most people seemed determined to stay even-tempered through it all).

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They were still making robo announcements in stations about the delay at 7 pm, but things were moving normally as far as I could tell.

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