Needham Line

A concerned citizen filed this photo of a shelter at the LaGrange Street commuter-rail stop:

Gang tagging. West Roxbury MBTA station.

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.

Kristina Cary reports from an inbound Needham Line train:

We're stopped right after Forest Hills with all power off.

The T estimated a 30-40 minute delay for the 8:30 train she's on. Steve Poftak, also on the train, though, tweets it took 50 minutes to get from Bellevue in West Roxbury to Ruggles.

Commuter-rail lines that share the Northeast Corridor with Amtrak (Providence, Franklin and Needham) are reporting delays thanks to an overhead Amtrak wire that came down somewhere between Forest Hills and downtown.

An incensed citizen posts a photo of a couple of obscene drawings at the Roslindale Square commuter-rail stop, one of which also has a text explanation, in case you couldn't figure out what the artist was trying to draw.

Brian D'Amico and Dan Adams report a guy was hit by a train around 8:30 p.m. on the Needham Line tracks between Home Depot and the West Roxbury Education Complex.

The MBTA reports a woman was so intent on trying to light her cigarette at the Needham Center station last night she didn't notice how close she was to the tracks - and the train that was entering the station.

The woman, 44, a worker at the Center Cafe next to the platform, was taken to Beth Israel Hospital with a non-life-threatening head injury and a broken collarbone following the incident around 8:50 p.m.

According to an MBTA Transit Police report, the woman:

[W]as walking on the platform attempting to light a cigarette. While focusing on the cigarette, [she] did not notice the incoming train and walked into the side of the train, knocking her to the ground.

MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo says the woman was not cited for smoking on the platform, since the reason she walked into the train was she wasn't able to get the cigarette lit.

Commuters on a Needham-Line train report they've now been sitting outside South Station for more than 30 minutes thanks to a dead engine.

Scott Katz tweets:

Waiting for push into station - could spit and reach platform now but stuck here going on 30 minutes.

Aaron Perrino adds:

If that fails they are going to send a pick up truck to save us.

Switching problems mean harried South Station commuters are even more harried than usual this morning. In at least one case, on the Needham line, commuters heading into Boston suddenly found themselves heading away from the city to get onto another track.

The Needham Line is experiencing delays tonight because of slippery tracks caused by falling leaves, Gvmiii tweets.

Broken trains on the Red Line and Providence Line, signal problems on the Blue Line, a broken rail on the Needham Line (a broken rail? What'd they do? Taunt it mercilessly until it collapsed in a sobbing heap on the ground?), speed restrictions on the Kingston/Plymouth Line. Amazingly, no delays reported on the Green Line.

Anna B reports her train this morning was two hours late:

... My train died at my stop and we wound up having to be pushed into Boston by another train. On top of that, the conductors didn't even announce the correct stops. ...

Boston Police tweet officers are at the Highland stop this morning after a decapitated body was found on the train tracks.

Early this afternoon near the Greendale Avenue bridge, Channel 5 reports.

Laura Scannell peers down the commuter-rail tracks in Roslindale.

Are MBCR conductors on another secret job action, or do they all just have sore throats? Charlie on the Commuter Rail reports what happened at Ruggles yesterday afternoon:

... An outbound train pulled up to Ruggles at 4:19; everyone got on. One passenger asked what train it was, and discovered that it wasn't the Franklin train after all; it was the Needham train, running very late. We all started shouting and warning people, and there was a mass exodus of Franklin passengers.

The conductors never announced the damn train. ...

Figures. Those disintegrating, cracked Northeast Corridor ties will affect some MBTA commuters out of South Station. The Globe reports the rail lines between Back Bay and Readville will be shut June 14 through 17 to allow for replacement of the ties there. That means buses for commuters on the Attleboro/Providence, Franklin, Needham and Stoughton lines (dear Globe: What about the Fairmount Line?).

Commute-a-holic, meanwhile, points us to this fun story about the Winchester commuter-rail stop:

Signs warning pedestrians away from the in-bound entrance to the commuter rail station along Waterfield Road in Winchester are still in place, more than two weeks after hundreds of pounds of concrete fell from the ceiling. ...

Catberta reports the 8 a.m. inbound train at Roslindale Village today was actually two minutes early.

Turns out Amtrak still handles the dispatching for trains out of South Station - and the track between Boston and Providence - so a possible strike by Amtrak workers next month could make commuting a bit more interesting from the south and west:

... A strike would nearly shut down South Station, forcing thousands of commuters on to subways, buses or into their own personal vehicles. ...

And, of course, given the general fragility of our road system, could we expect a cascading effect to make the drive to and from the south and west even more fun?