Channel 5 reports the 18-year-old was hit on the Fitchburg Line near Belmont High School.

Amidst all the Dan Brown and Ken Follett books, Scott Stearns noticed a commuter with a different kind of book:

... Today I noticed a man, perhaps an academic of some sort, reading Marcel Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past". Literature is not dead in the world, quite yet.

Nichole Bee tweets:

Nothing beats reading "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies" on the T...and the guy next to you turns out to be reading the exact same thing

Madfilkentist reports that due to some "suspect" track in the Concord area, his evening commute this week has been 30 minutes longer. On the plus side, he adds:

The good news is that in early October the Fitchburg line offers passengers a very scenic view, especially in the area of the Concord River and Walden Pond. ...

Dan Miller takes the 5:45 a.m. train out of Fitchburg. As you might expect, it's normally a pretty sleepy affair. Except today, thanks to a clueless woman loudly babbling away on her cell phone:

... As we arrive at North Station, commuters looked forward to some peace on the Green or Orange Lines, or perhaps a brisk walk to their office. ...

JackCroww posts a photo from a Fitchburg coach this morning, almost completely empty because it has no heat.

After a few months away from Boston, Jim Kane arrives back at South Station to see an electronic signboard stating the next train to Fitchburg leaves from track 6.

Jack Croww reports from the 4:40 Fitchburg express, five minutes out of North Station:

... [T]he utility closet door starts to drift open due to the swaying of the train. Seeing as I'm sitting right next to it, I reach out and give it a good shove to close it. As it clicks shut, all the power goes out on the train. ...

Channel 4 reports:

The Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad is looking at making some changes after a train in Waltham started to move before three children were able to get off, separating them from their parents. ...

One Fitchburg Line commuter was apparently too tired to write to the top so he or she wrote to the side of train 429. As Tom Wheaton's photo shows, the MBCR's response was to paint over just part of the message, so it wasn't quite so offensive. Now THAT's service.

Grabauskas explains how the T will increase ridership in a BostonNow interview. Making trains and buses run on time is a big part of it, he says, which will no doubt come as welcome news to Renee Walsh, who is fuming mad at continued commuter-rail suckage, such as her train being 45 minutes late today. Alas, for Renee, a bunch of new commuter-rail cars won't be delivered until 2011.

Apparently, many had to wait 25 minutes in the cold this morning because the trains were delayed. The author compiles all the other problems with commuter rail - which include delays when it rains and when the leaves fall.

Fitchburg Line regular Gary McGath reports his train was 15 minutes late and that:

... Two of the cars were unheated, so passengers packed into the remaining cars. ...