Green Line

As of 8:20 a.m.: Two trolleys died on the Green Line (one at Chestnut Hill Avenue, one at Park Street) and one train died on the Red Line (at Charles/MGH).

This car.

UPDATE: An MBTA spokesman reports: "There was no damage to the tracks. No injuries. The auto was towed away, and trolley service resumed. It's unclear how this atom-splitter ended up on the Green Line tracks.

Earlier:
Woman claims GPS told her to drive on Beacon Street trolley tracks.

Dead trains on the Red, Green, Needham and Providence/Stoughton lines (so far) made for another interesting commute for many this morning.

UPDATE: "Significant delays" possible on the Fitchburg Line due to signal problems.

Photo by MBTA.

MBTA General Manager Beverly Scott and Assistant General Manager Michael Turcotte examine the shorted out cable that stopped the Green Line in its tracks during yesterday's morning rush hour (not to be confused with the other cable in the same location that shorted out service last night).

The date on the table presumably refers to the year subway service started in Boston, not the year the cable was installed, but one never knows.

Yesterday's troublesome Green Line junction box, covered in foam. Photo by BFD.

No cable fires (so far) on the Green Line this morning, but delays caused by dying trolleys. Meanwhile, on the Red Line, one train, and its riders, wheezed into South Station around 6:45 a.m. Fatty tweets:

My train smells like it's on fire. ...

My train WAS on fire. It is no longer my train. We are in a smoke cloud at South Station because the brakes have been on since Dorchester.

I'm going to start slow chanting "refund" as soon as the smoke clears and I can breathe again.

Another "power problem" between Arlington and Copley tonight - yes, cables are burning - and riders are finding themselves stranded. Emily Munroe tweeted shortly after 9:50:

Just got kicked off Bgreen line before Kenmore and was told there are no shuttles.

Bostonians had their choice of venues for standing around this AM, such as Andrew. Photo by Chris Wright.

Fire on the inbound tracks between Arlington and Copley around 7:40, Jay Joynes tweets. At first, the T shut Arlington station because of heavy smoke, but shortly after 8 a.m., it shut down all Green Line service downtown. And shortly after 8:30, the T began evacuating trolleys stuck in the tunnel near Hynes and Copley stations.

The T eventually sent in some shuttle buses between stations to the west and downtown, but many commuters didn't wait. As Gracetopia tweets:

I now feel like one of the army of the commute, as I walk from Kenmore to downtown with my fellow MBTA refugees.

Lindsay Douglas, though, was one of the people who stayed behind at Kenmore:

I've never seen chaos like this. Coldest day of the year + the MBTA shuts down the green line. Yelling+angry people.

And because misery loves company, an inbound Red Line train died not long after at Charles/MGH, Rob Grover tweets. Later, another train died at Porter. Around 9:20, another train died, inbound at Andrew.

The Walking Bostonian reports MBTA officials promised at a meeting Thursday to install the equipment and software needed for real-time tracking on the Green Line by 2015 - similar to the tracking that lets riders known when to run for a train on the other three subway lines.

H/t Boston Zest.

Neville Williams took this photo of smoking Green Line tracks at Coolidge Corner around 12:40 p.m., around the time the T was issuing an alert about delays due to "fire department activity" in Coolidge Corner.

The Wandering Jew reports he isn't wandering all that much on the Green Line this morning:

This T driver is giving me whiplash. Impressive given how slowly we're going.

Joy. Alarms going off on the T. Driver using the emergency brake/door release to let passengers off.

Passengers on board urging the T to move with encouraging chants of "come on, come on" and "you can do it..."

I am not chanting encouragements. I'm muttering curses.

Kinda sorta driving forward (I could walk faster). And only front door operational - and only by the emergency release lever.

Matt Karolian looked at a wall display at the Arlington stop on the Green Line. And then he looked closer.

UPDATE: A second Red Line train died at Alewife; another Green Line trolley gave up the ghost, bollxing up outbound C and E service. Commuter rail? You don't want to know.

In this young year, the Red Line is now 2 for 2 in morning-commute delays due to dead trains, this time at JFK/UMass, but today has the extra bonus of delays due to "weather-related issues."

Meghan C. reports it took her 75 minutes to get from Braintree to MGH.

The Green Line was also having problems, due to a recalcitrant train at Kenmore. There was also a dead train on the Blue Line.

It was a different story on the Orange Line. At 7:24, Joe Growhoski tweeted:

Orange line nice warm and smooth ..... So far

Woman claimed her GPS made her drive on the C line. Photo by MBTA.

The Green Line has always stood apart from the other three T lines - and only partly because it's the only trolley line. Which other line would suffer service delays due to turtle? Here are some highlights from the Green Line, 2012 edition:

The T is busing Riverside riders between Reservoir and Riverside because of a tree that fell on the tracks.

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.

WBZ interviews the driver of the trolley that was stopped at Boylston when another train plowed into his on Nov. 29. The other driver, coming off an eight-hour overnight shift at another job, was fired.

His injuries have been an ordeal, confined to a brace 24 hours a day to keep his neck straight. He has an upcoming appointment with an orthopedic spine specialist to determine how soon he can go back to work.

On the 86 took this photo of an ad at the Beaconsfield Green Line stop - across from where a Newton man is charged with pulling his pud in plain view earlier this month.

MBTA Transit Police report arresting John Wintersteiner, 30, of Newton, on charges he masturbated at the Beaconsfield Green Line stop earlier this month to the shock of a woman on the other side of the tracks.

Wintersteiner, whom police said was dimed out via the T's anonymous tip line, will be arraigned in Brookline District Court today on a charge of open and gross lewdness, following his arrest at his home this morning.

Innocent, etc.

Derailed trolley. Photo by Steve Burns.

Around 8:25 p.m. Jonathan D. Roger reports:

Inbound B line train derailed --large flash with a lot of sparks and the back car on the train derailed.

The trolley is partly blocking the outbound tracks and the T is shutting off power - one of the trolley's pantographs is entangled with the overhead lines. None of the roughly 30 passengers in the first car reported injuries; the second car, which actually jumped the tracks, was empty except for the operator - who was taken to St. Elizabeth's Hospital for evaluation.

MBTA Transit Police have posted a photo of a guy they say bashed the bishop at Beaconsfield on the evening of Dec. 3 while a woman looked on in shock from the other side of the tracks.

G.A. Robinson reports somebody had their cell phone stolen around 8 p.m. at the Chestnut Hill stop on the Green Line by a black man and a Hispanic woman with a rifle.

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.

Becca Westelman tweets it took her Green Line trolley 35 minutes to get from Park Street to Arlington this morning.

At 1:30 this afternoon, city and state officials gather in Somerville to ceremonially dig the first shovel of dirt for the first phase of the long fabled Green Line extension north from Lechmere.

David notices Boston transportation services tend to be built in fives and then the powers that be eliminate one of them: There used to be five Green Line branches, five Silver Line routes and five terminals at Logan.

What's going on here? Do the planners have spooky Mickey Mouse hands? Does Boston overbuild then scale back? Shrinkage?