Hey, there! Log in / Register
He writes to the top, but will the top write back?
By adamg on Fri, 01/18/2008 - 11:28am
Train Rider is not a happy camper today - thanks to delays on the Worcester line, he didn't get to work until just before 10 a.m.. Think anybody at MBCR will reply to the withering note he submitted on its "submit a concern" form?
He describes that commute:
So, the 7:19 a.m. showed up to Grafton at 7:55 a.m.. I was on my way to my car to drive in, but heard the train so booked back to the platform.
All of the doors were shut, so passengers had to open them to board the train. There were no conductors to be seen to either explain the delay or collect passes. ...
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Was it a mistake to extend this line west of Framingham?
Seems like the problems here really started after the T extended service to Worcester, and especially after they added more stations beween Framingham and Worcester.
I'm usually all for extended transit service in every direction, but was this a mistake?
Always bad
I'm pretty sure that line was always bad. I had an office mate years ago who rode it to Framingham and she gave me an earful several times a week about how terrible it was. Then and now, the issue is that it runs on what is primarily a freight operation. Whether Conrail or CSX, the MBTA trains have never had dispatch priority on that line. Perhaps the Worcester extension provided more opportunity for CSX to screw things up, but I don't think that is directly to blame.
A truck hit a railroad bridge
I heard on my way in that a truck or some other vehicle had struck some portion of a railroad bridge. That was the cause for the delays.
Some things can't be helped sometimes. It certainly would have helped if the conductors had let people know what was going on. Who knows why they didn't...
If what I heard was true, chalk this one up to something the MBTA/MBCR had no control over, which is a change.
Of course it wasn't a mistake
The mistake wasn't extending the line to Worcester, the mistake was letting two horribly inept companies manage the operations and dispatch of the trains on that line.
"Write to the Top" is a lie
Sometimes I'd write to complain about the same bus route, and shockingly, I'd often get the same cut and paste reply.
And sometimes I'd get a reply that would say "we are unaware of such a problem, thanks for bringing this to our attention"? How could they be unaware if I emailed them 5 times about the same problem and same route last month?
It sounds as if they're just pulling rank
and making up excuses to cover up their poor showing in this mess. Without knowing a whole lot about this situation, the fact that incompetents have been hired to manage the extended line west of Framingham seems to have everything to do with it. Also, one has to ask Whatever happened to accountability? It seems not to exist any more.