Orange Line

A Mattapan man faces arraignment tomorrow on charges he lifted his dress and showed passersby what the Good Lord gave him outside the Mass. Ave. Orange Line stop Friday afternoon.

According to an MBTA Transit Police report, Ray Johnson, 27, of Old Morton Street, lifted his dress several times in front of a woman and her children shortly before 1:30 p.m.. When another man told him to knock it off and stop being disrespectful, the report continues, Johnson said "I'll show you disrespectful" and then bent over and exposed himself again, this time to a larger group that included "three elderly women passing out religious literature."

Johnson was charged with open and gross lewdness.

Innocent, etc.

Somebody at the T must be slipping: As I rode the Orange Line to Back Bay today, only one side of the train was filled with all these BO ads (including a BO meter that ranged from "aromatic" to "putrid"). The other side just had boring ads for veteran outreach programs and solicitations for people who want to be human guinea pigs.

File this under customer disservice. Stephanie Chelf reports her mother, who doesn't normally take the T (she usually takes a bus in from Andover), found herself at Wellington station on the Orange Line this morning, credit card and CharlieCard in hand, in front of a CharlieCard machine that didn't seem to want to let her add enough money for a ride into town.

"A frazzled T employee took her card and ran it without asking what she wanted," Chelf writes. Unfortunately for mom, the guy put a $60 monthly pass on her CharlieCard, instead of, oh, $1.70 for a single ride. Fine, mistakes happen, but when she complained, the guy said there was nothing he could do and she'd have to go to Downtown Crossing. Which she did, and where "they said 'write a letter' and she'd hear something in 3 months."

Chelf concludes: "WTF!"

How many times, do you think, did somebody walk by that door at State Street station before she finally couldn't stand it anymore and whipped out a Sharpie to add the verb?

UPDATE: A spokesman said power was restored around 1:15 p.m.; no word on what caused the problem, though.

Alert New England tweets major power and communications problems mean all trains are being held in their stations. T riders tweet trains go for a bit, then stop. The lucky ones are able to get out at the stations and look for a cab. The unlucky ones sit in tunnels or on the Longfellow; at 12:44, Bill Haddad tweeted he'd been stuck underground for an hour.

At 12:15 p.m., Earnest tweeted the trains were running again out of Forest Hills; at 12:33, But at 12:37, Nicole Minard tweeted her Orange Line train was stuck at Downtown Crossing after managing to get there from Back Bay.

At 12:55, Finn reported:

Just spent an hour on the red line between Harvard and Kendall. Dropped off at Kendall; told time to DTX was 30+ min.

Pshaw, that's nothing. QuagMeier tweeted at 1:04 that she'd just spent two hours on the Red Line between Andrew and JFK.

Did somebody trip over the power cord again?

Harold M. Clemens reports he wanted to reward a cool harmonica and guitar player on an Orange Line platform at Downtown Crossing yesterday, but realized he couldn't, because he had no change:

... in an instant I recognized what must be an externality - Charlie Cards have likely put a pinch on pan handlers, curb-side musicians and others. to be more specific: since automated machines have obsoleted the exchange of petty cash at train stations, passengers probably have less exchange change, if any at all, to give to impromptu performers.

that's kinda messed up and not only because of the human element of it. curb-side performers are often good entertainment and pleasant background noise while waiting for transportation. it's safe to say they've become hallmarks of many major cities. ...

The Globe reports he was stabbed in the chest near a "secondary station entrance" around 8:15 p.m. yesterday, is expected to survive.

Jeepers, creepers

The USDA wasted little time getting ads up on the Orange Line, which starts (or ends) right in the middle of Beetleville (anybody know about buses out of Forest Hills?). UPDATE: Actually, they started running this campaign last year, but ye ed was blissfully unaware of it until a couple days ago. See the comments for more.

Meanwhile, the city, state and feds are holding an open house this Saturday, 10 a.m. to noon at Jamaica Plain's Curtis Hall to get residents in the Beetle Zone the information they need on how to spot any infestation and how to dispose of branches, stumps and other woody stuff for the next, oh, four years or so.

An Everett man was arrested yesterday on charges he undid his pants and ground himself against a woman on the Orange Line between Wellington and North Station around 7:40 a.m. on July 19.

Robert Ricci, 35, faces a charge of indecent assault and battery.

According to a police report, the victim got on at Wellington:

The victim remained standing on the train and at this time she noticed the suspect stand directly behind her, placing his hand over her to grab onto the hand rail. The victim continued to state the suspect began to press then rub against her backside, which felt like a handbag pressing against her.

Of course, that was no handbag. In the window, she noticed a reflection of him pressing into her:

The victim quickly moved away and noticed that the suspect's pants were undone and his underwear exposed.

Innocent, etc.

UPDATE: The MBTA says witnesses watched the man jump onto the tracks, where he made no contact with either train or third rail. He was taken to a local hospital for treatment of cuts and bruises.

Boston Fireman tweets on the incident. The person was removed from the tracks around 9 p.m. but the T was still busing between Ruggles and Forest Hills as of 9:30 p.m.

And the Dudley Next Stop announcement were set to electronica.

VelhoThe MBTA reports a Charlestown man was arrested for allegedly grabbing a woman's behind at Community College on the Orange Line on July 8 and that a Brighton man was arrested at Copley this morning for allegedly rubbing against a woman from behind on a B trolley - and then pinning her in and continuing to grind away.

In the Orange Line incident, John Velho, 36, allegedly grabbed a woman's buttocks around 6 p.m. on July 8, then immediately apologized. But he allegedly then followed the woman onto the platform, where she reported him to an inspector, who responded by ordering a halt to Orange Line service and calling police. Velho then fled from the station, the MBTA says, adding Velho was arrested today on a charge of indecent assault and battery.

Five. One to screw it in and four to make sure the light switch is off.

So Orange Line trains went into single-employee mode this week (oh, noes, no more Old Jewish Guy Announcer, "Doors open on YO left" Lady or Disgruntled Conductor?). But Buck Buckaroo reports it still takes more than one T worker to get the trains out of stations:

A T Inspector or announcer stands at the end of the platform, and waves a flashlight around if it's not safe to close [the doors] yet. Then he just holds the flashlight steady when the doors can close. 1850's subway service, anyone?

In addition to Flashlight Guy, several other Orange Vests are stationed on the platform to make sure it's safe for the train to pull out, in part by yelling "STAND BACK! DOORS ARE CLOSING!" Which used to take just a single T worker sitting in the middle of the train to do.

Channel 7 reports on a Monday incident at the Orange Line station, involving a pregnant woman trying to exit the station in the face of a woman who objected to her existence:

"[The alleged puncher] did state to the officers that she did do it, and she wished she had done more, and she was proud she did it," said Lt. Michael Shea of the MBTA Police.

Shawnna Imani reports that after getting dumped out of one Orange Line train taken out of service at Ruggles, she finally got to Haymarket and was on her way up the escalator when it just stopped, throwing her and others down and giving her a set of fresh puncture wounds on her arm (only click if you want to see somebody's arm with bits of skin missing). She adds that a T employee apologized and gave her a six-month CharlieCard.

Orange Line regulars know the shrill blare of her voice only too well, the scream that demands people back away from the doors NOW. For unlike other subway workers, who first tell people to stop holding a door fairly calmly before escalating into DefCon 4 mode, she is the permanently irritated throbbing nerve of every station between Forest Hills and Oak Grove.

Desiree Headley reports a new, even more severe edge to her this morning:

Nothing makes my commute more enjoyable than listening to an MBTA employee curse over the intercom. Love it!

She screams: "Attention passengers do not hold the door! ... What the f**k???"

One wonders how long we have to wait before she rips open the door to her compartment, finds the evil door-holder, puts him in a headlock and begins whaling away at him.

The Downtown Crossing T stop was evacuated briefly tonight as firefighters attempted to determine the source of odor in the concourse that left some people with irritated throats. The Red and Orange lines continued to operate but were bypassing Downtown Crossing. Shortly after 10 p.m., fire officials let the MBTA resume normal operations at the station.

The Boston Fire Department reports the odor may have been pepper spray. Six people were evaluated by EMTs but none needed a ride to the hospital, BFD says.

April 29:
Fire at Downtown Crossing shuts Red, Orange, Green lines.

Not sure of the title, but it's probably something like Rushing Commuters, Falling Water.

Nowhere near as bad as the Red Line fire the other day, though. A cable behind a wall on the outbound Orange Line platform at State Street began to smoulder around 9:40 a.m.

I got off the Orange Line at State a few minutes later - after the train stopped briefly before pulling into the station. There was light smoke (not even as bad as the smog by the ticket counters at Back Bay on a normal day) and crews from one ladder truck and one engine studying and spraying the wall (not with water, with CO2?) near the exit to the Blue Line. The station wasn't closed; T police were there to keep people away from the wall, not evacuate the station.

This time it's Green Street on the Orange Line, shortly after 6 p.m. At least it's not in a tunnel.

MBTA General Manager Richard Davey reports the T had budgeted $37 million in the fiscal year that starts July 1 to replace antiquated wires and circuit breakers along the Red and Orange Lines - including the stretch that caused last night's smokey fire that shut three subway lines downtown.

Davey added that just this month, T subway workers began a "re-sectioning" project to shorten the length of power feeds along the Red Line, which should reduce the number of stations that have to be closed during a similar emergency. Last night, the Red Line was shut from Cambridge to South Boston.

He praised the Boston Fire Department and T workers for getting riders out of Red and Green Line stations and trains quickly and T workers for restoring Red Line service in time for this morning's rush hour.

Smoke billowing out of the Filene's Basement entrance to Downtown Crossing tonight. By Steve Laniel.

Friday morning commute could be a mess, at least on the Red Line, so leave some extra time and check mbta.com.

A three-alarm electrical fire on the Red Line tracks at Downtown Crossing sent acrid smoke billowing through subway tunnels around 10 p.m., shutting down three of the MBTA's four subway lines downtown and sending at least 20 people to the hospital for smoke inhalation.

Smoke reached at least as far as Boylston on the Green Line and South Station on the Red Line - where Silver Line service was disrupted as well. Several electrical cables on the Alewife-bound side of the Red Line platform at Downtown Crossing began burning around 10 p.m.

Kevin Gilnack tweeted shortly after 10 p.m.:

Dead train at North Station means 20 to 25-minute delays, the MBTA advises (both directions, though? The T doesn't say).

Forget those highly visible mirrors that are showing up on the station platforms. As I observed this morning during my first Orange Line trip from Oak Grove in a long time, most stations now have large flat screen TV panels mounted on the wall adjacent to the end of the platform. These panels, which are not visible if you're on the platform unless you know where to look, show a four-split view of the platform from cameras.

Once again, for the sake of eliminating personnel becuase they claim they're so broke (never mind the money they spend on "necessary" environmental reports and workshops and public meetings, not to mention totally gutting perfectly functional subway stations like Kenmore), the T is WASTING money on yet more USELESS high tech gear that does NOTHING TO MAKE THE TRAINS AND BUSES RUN FASTER OR MAINTAIN SCHEDULE BETTER and will eventually break or be vandalized. But that's apparently the T's mantra -millions for high tech junk that looks pretty, but pennies for maintaing staff that actually do work.

Photographer Mark Garfinkel took advantage of it.