Well-written, and probably better elaborated than I've been able to in my commuter rail rage the past few weeks. A few things I'd like to add to this (well a few points, but a lot of text):

I think the only thing I've ever asked one of the customer service people is why the trains don't end up on the same tracks ever. They gave me this long explanation about how they never know with late trains and whatever and blah blah blah. I don't know. I'm sure if I sat down with the schedules I could make it work, I don't know why they can't.

It drives me nuts, since I'm usually the guy running across south station to make my train (oftentimes after the track numbers have disappeared, which happens exactly at the time the train should depart, whether or not it does), meaning I could potentially make the train (though my train has been leaving right on time lately) if it leaves late. In fact, my friend told me I actually could have got on a train that left 10 minutes late about 2 weeks back, but had already been taken off the board by the time I got there, so I assumed it had left.

About the announcements, the computerized voice is definitely loud (deafeningly so) and clear, but oftentimes a human will speak over it. I don't really have an issue with this at south station (the guy at night at least is very clear and articulate), but they should just let the computer do it unless there's some issue.

Moving on to the station clocks... yikes. How many times in the past month has my train left early? A handful at least. The conductor did an all aboard at like 5 minutes of and then chastised me for not rushing. I said, "We still have 5 minutes" pointing toward the station clock, "Not according to my watch." It's that attitude that makes me want to bang my head against a wall. I want the commuter rails to be on time I really do, but not at the expense of leaving a minute early and often times stranding me for an hour and a half.

Finally, the green line drivers are on occasion horrible. I agree with the article, I am a VERY good rider on the T, I can usually "surf" (ride without holding anything). But even while holding a bar the other day, I got knocked off my feet during an acceleration followed by slamming on the breaks. It's a common occurrence. I KNOW the T drivers can see what's in front of them so why would you go full throttle when a train is just in front of you only to slam the breaks?

Even more annoying perhaps are the overly-safe drivers, why did one of my drivers last week come to a complete stop before entering each station and then enter the station at... I dunno... 2 mph? I completely understand this practice when there's a train unloading directly in front of you, especially at Boylston after the sharp turn, but not when the tracks are completely empty in front of you. This is why there is such a major backup and congestion in the subway during evening rush inbound on the Green. I have to add to this that it still perplexs me why the Red Line drivers do the same thing at Park driving through the station at a snail's pace. It'd be one thing if there were people standing dangerously close to the edge ("on the yellow"), but when the station isn't overly busy, it's painful to see the train take a minute and a half to fully enter the station.

That's it from me.

in track assignment between the electronic board and the PA announcement, it's usually the human voice on the PA that gets the track wrong, not the signboard.

Of course, there are many times at North Station when the signboards will still display track information well after the train has left (I think the longest I've observed is 9 minutes after departure). VERY annoying, and totally unnnecessary.

And yes, there are those instances when the human and automated PA voices are speaking at the same time. Very funny, but also very sad, especially when they both need to say "Tickets purchased on board are subject to an additional fee". instead of "$2.00 surcharge".