Blue Line

A man wound up on the tracks at Airport station around 8:30 p.m. on Thursday. The train operator managed to stop the train before hitting him. An MBTA spokesman declined to say how the man ended up on the tracks but said he was not seriously hurt (click to see a photo from the scene, forwarded by Heath - it's not gory, but could be disturbing).

Around 1 p.m. today, Jenn Martinelli reports:

A guy just fell on the tracks at Maverick Station right before the train arrived. 3 people jumped right down to help. The train was almost at the station and they just jumped right down and got him.

At 6:22, Miza reported:

Beware of blue line, 2 trains full dumped off at Suffolk Downs due to wire issues. No shuttles.

The T eventually did start shuttle service, using Silver Line buses, which, of course, led to delays on the Silver Line.

Blue Line service was shut around 10:15 a.m. to let Boston firefighters remove a woman from under a train. A T spokesman said the woman was alive when extricated, adds, "She did not fall. She was not pushed."

UPDATE, 4:30 p.m. The T reports regular service has resumed.

The T is warning Blue Line passengers to expect "significant delays" this afternoon following a train slipping off the rails at Orient Heights.

MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo reports the train was moving from the Orient Heights train yard onto the main tracks around 2:40 p.m., so it wasn't carrying any passengers. The T has swapped in buses for trains between Suffolk Downs and Airport.

Yesterday, the MBTA warned the tax increases proposed by the legislature were so small it could jeopardize $500 million or in anticipated federal aid for the Green Line extension. This morning, as A.P. Blake noted at 8:55 a.m.:

In the past two hours, every rapid transit line in Boston has suffered some delay due to mechanical/signal failure.

A doctor from Dubai who got on a Blue Line train at Wonderland shortly before 5 p.m. yesterday with his family says whoever took the black bag he left on a bench can keep the $3,500 in cash and the international airline tickets that were in it - he just wants their passports back.

The bag contained the passports for Dr. Zeeshan Khan, his wife Yasmin, son Raiyan and daughter Sayeema.

The MBTA says an inspector managed to board the train and asked if anybody had seen the bag or who took it. One person said "he believes a male took the bag and got off at Beachmont station," according to a Transit Police report.

However, surveillance video did not show anybody at Beachmont, Revere Beach or Wonderland with a bag matching Khan's.

Anybody with information can contact Transit Police at 617-222-1050 or anonymously by texting 873873.

Those infected mutants blocking your way just get out of hand sometimes.

More at BostInno.

The T wonders if you can figure out where this photo was taken.

MBTA Transit Police have released photos of two guys they say approached somebody at the Bremen Street entrance to the Airport T stop on Dec. 22 and "offered to sell him a .40 caliber and/or a .380 caliber firearm."

One is black, about 6'2" with a Pirates cap, dark parka with a fur-lined hood, jeans and sneakers. The other is Hispanic, 5'6" to 5'8" with a small mustache, wearing a blue leather jacket with white stripes down the arms and across the chest with some type of symbol on the upper left chest.

Know them? Contact T police at 617-222-1050 or send an anonymous tip via the SeeSay app or text to 873873.

What do you make of this, Johnny? Trains on the Orange, Green and Blue lines slowed due to a power problem the T has yet to identify. Officials report power had come back at several locations by 1:45 p.m., however. The Blue Line was reported back up and running about five minutes after that.

The MBTA forwards this photo from the Blue Line repair facility in Orient Heights, where workers have made a Christmas tree out of a "bolster rack" of trucks used to hold the axles of Blue Line cars.

Matthew provides notes from last evening's meeting on the need for a new Government Center T stop and how officials are planning to move people around when they lose the connection between the Blue and Green lines for two years.

Also see the UHub discussion on the work.

Meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. at 100 Cambridge St. Details on the upgrade.

A.P. Blake spotted this poster from the T Riders Union on the Blue Line today.

The Globe reports on the planned September, 2013 shutdown, which will include making the station ADA compliant and replacing the current bomb shelter of an entrance with something glassier.

Meanwhile, on Dec. 18, the Parks and Recreation Department holds a formal tree hearing on the T's request to chop down 21 trees along Cambridge Street to make way for the renovation project - 13 linden trees and 8 crabapple trees. The hearing starts at 10 a.m. in the department's 1010 Mass. Ave. offices.

Hernandez (l) and Jacques.MBTA Transit Police report arresting two guys who didn't take kindly to news early this morning that a T worker wouldn't personally drive them back home and that a cab driver wouldn't take them to Blue Hill Avenue for a flat $20.

Ivan Hernandez, 22, of Dorchester, and Jevaun Jacques, 21, of Mattapan, face a variety of charges for a melee outside Wonderland station around 1:30 a.m. that police say started when they went up to a T employee, said they were T workers themselves and that he should drive them post haste to Blue Hill Avenue. When he refused, police say, they kicked his car. Then, police say:

AlertNewEngland reports somebody was stabbed around 6:30 p.m. at the Maverick Square Burger King and that the suspect, a Hispanic teen, fled into the Maverick T stop.

Photo by Boston Office of Emergency Management.

Police, fire and emergency-medical crews from across the area have descended on various locations in Boston this weekend for drills on dealing with a variety of situations, from hostage-taking bank robbers at the Circle Cinema in Cleveland Circle to a hazmat/suspicious package situation on a Blue Line train at Bowdoin (above). So any gunfire you might hear? Chances are it's not real.

On the Blue Line. Photo by BFD.

Rob McDougall reports somebody was shot in the arm shortly before 7 p.m. The suspect was described as a black Hispanic male who fled in an older Civic last spotted headed toward Revere.

Andy Dost reports cops were in no mood to explain what was going on to bystanders:

Armed police have set up a tape perimeter at the Orient Heights stop. An officer told me when I asked, "Escaped zombies."

The Blue Line ran out of juice around 5:30 p.m., just in time for the afternoon rush.

The state Department of Environmental Protection holds two meetings Thursday to consider the MBTA's request that it be allowed to shimmy out of requirements to extend the Blue Line to Charles Street.

The Department of Transportation, which now includes the T, formally asked its environmental counterparts last year to absolve it of the need to spend $49 million to design a $750 million project it says it has no money to build, even if it wanted to.

The meetings start at 1 and 5 p.m. at DEP headquarters on the second floor of 1 Winter St. downtown.

Trains are dead in Revere thanks to a downed wire, so that that means busing between Orient Heights and Wonderland - and a chance for passengers stuck near Revere Beach to get a first-hand taste of how the Revere Fire Department evacuates people from trains. Expect, as they say, significant delays.

Another T worker caught snoozing on the job, this time at Revere Beach.

Earlier:
MBTA forced to hire back Green Line driver who fell asleep on the job, tested positive for cocaine.
The sleeping cop of Mattapan Square.
Red Line workers may need their own memo about sleeping on the job.

At one point this morning, dead trains and signal problems meant simultaneous delays on the Red, Green and Blue Lines. Ol' Grampa Orange Line, however, confounded the delay gremlins.

Mike Miccoli reported from Government Center at the height of one of the afternoon's storms:

Turnstiles at Govt Center aren't working. Of course, there are millions of tourists confused. Now I know what hell looks like.

Line to get into Govt Center is backed up into the rain. Of course, there's only one frantic employee trying to manually open each one.

Thankfully a true Bostonian used his hand to enter thru turnstile and let everyone in. MBTA worker not pleased, but hey, problem solved!