JFK/Umass

UPDATE: A second Red Line train died at Alewife; another Green Line trolley gave up the ghost, bollxing up outbound C and E service. Commuter rail? You don't want to know.

In this young year, the Red Line is now 2 for 2 in morning-commute delays due to dead trains, this time at JFK/UMass, but today has the extra bonus of delays due to "weather-related issues."

Meghan C. reports it took her 75 minutes to get from Braintree to MGH.

The Green Line was also having problems, due to a recalcitrant train at Kenmore. There was also a dead train on the Blue Line.

It was a different story on the Orange Line. At 7:24, Joe Growhoski tweeted:

Orange line nice warm and smooth ..... So far

Casey Shockley shows off his rendition of the Red Line at the Andrew-JFK/UMass tunnel, done a year ago at Karma Tattoo in Somerville. He explains he used to live in the Polish Triangle in Dorchester. See it larger.

He joins Dot rat Adam Myerson, who has the Ashmont line on his leg (more) and Josh DeCosta, who has the Orange Line at Sullivan Square on his arm.

Kaitlin Maud, meanwhile, has the entire MBTA map on her arm - both subway and commuter rail (in the photo, north is at the bottom, Green Line on the right):

MBTA Transit Police report a Red Line rider and her cash were reunited this holiday season thanks to an honest fellow passenger.

Last Friday afternoon, police say, a guy on his way into town who was about to sit down at JFK/UMass started to move what he thought was some trash on the seat:

In doing so he noticed a five dollar bill protruding from the envelope. He then looked inside, the envelope was filled with cash. Unfortunately there was nothing to identify who the money belonged to. The gentleman asked all passengers within proximity if the envelope was theirs, NOT one MBTA patron attempted to falsely claim the money as theirs. The gentleman got off at South Station and immediately sought out police and handed over the envelope. The envelope contained $584.

On Tuesday, police continue:

[T]he rightful owner, a house keeper at a local hotel and a resident of Dorchester, came to Transit Police HQ, identified certain distinct aspects of the envelope the US Currency was in when lost and they were reunited with their hard earned money.

Boston Police report they are looking for a guy who is robbing women coming out of the JFK/UMass, Savin Hill, Shawmut and Ashmont T stop between 7 and 10:30 p.m.

In some of the incidents, the suspect, described as a black male with a thin build, age 20-30, wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt and showed a handgun. The male suspect has engaged victims in a brief conversation before demanding money.

The MBTA forwarded this photo of a tree down on the Red Line just south of Fields Corner and this photo of a tree down just north of JFK/UMass:

MBTA Transit Police report arresting a man they say was about to sell some drugs at the JFK/UMass Red Line stop yesterday evening.

Robert Paul, 36, of Roxbury, was allegedly packing meth, pot, heroin, oxycodone and diazepam when two officers interrupted him and a potential buyer near a Columbia Road exit gate around 7:30 p.m. He also had a portable digital scale, a glass pipe and 13 spare plastic bags, along with a folding knife and $237 in cash, police say.

Because the station sits next to the Boston Collegiate Charter School, he will be charged with a variety of offenses in a school zone. He is also wanted on a parole violation in Concord, NH, where he was convicted of armed robbery, police say.

State Police shut down Carson Beach and the roads around it and the JFK/UMass T stop when a giant brawl broke out around 5:30 p.m., according to Local 718 and Shawn Granniss.

Channel 4 reports as many as 1,000 people showed up for a gang fight, and that this was the third day in a row of gang trouble at the beach.

J.J. Leslie tweets:

I was down there just before that, swimming. Big groups by the bath house. Not regulars. Left just before things went down.

How about "a structural problem" that has closed the bus ramp to JFK/UMass? The T is running a shuttle bus between JFK and Andrew.

Oh, and there's a boring disabled train at Braintree.

Ed Forry watched a tragedy averted this afternoon:

At about 4:40 this afternoon, I walked down the stairs to the platform to catch an Ashmont train that was just arriving. At the platform, I saw several passengers gathering to look into the outbound pit, and saw a young woman lying flat on her back in the middle of the tracks, just four feet away from the third rail. ...

For the second night in a row, somebody fell on subway tracks, but this time with a happier outcome.

Boston Fireman reports a man in a wheelchair somehow wound up in the pit at JFK/UMass shortly before 10:30 p.m. Power was shut off northbound and toward both Ashmont and Braintree as fire crews got the man and his chair off the tracks.

Channel 7 tweets the man is 65 and was taken to Boston Medical Center. The incident is, as they say, under investigation.

Last night, around the same time, a man fell on the tracks at the Malden stop on the Orange Line, but he hit the third rail and died.

A South End carjacking that ended with a crash near the JFK/UMass T stop had police searching Red Line trains for the suspect this morning.

After being spotted by a detail cop on Waltham Street carjacking a green Lexus SUV around 8 a.m., the suspect drove away, leading responding police units on a chase that went down the Expressway and ended with a crash near Buttonwood Court in Dorchester. The man then ran away and police officers and a canine unit are currently on the hunt for him.

8:58 a.m. update: They are restarting the trains.

MBTA Transit Police investigating a report of a man exposing himself at the Red Line stop Sunday evening arrested Enrique Lopes on charges he grabbed the buttocks of one woman - and suspect him for grabbing another woman.

Police say Lopes, 30, of North Quincy, approached a woman on the Ashmont platform not long before they arrived at 7:45 p.m. She went back to the fare gate area, where she found a T inspector, who then accompanied her back to the platform to try to find the grabber, police say. Another witness spotted the guy trying to grab a woman from behind on the Braintree platform, shortly before he tried to get onto an Ashmont train, police say, adding the T worker prevented Lopes from getting on the train. The second victim left before police arrived.

He is charged with indecent assault and battery and was ordered held in lieu of $2,000 cash bail following his arraignment in Dorchester District Court today.

Innocent, etc.

Boston Police tweet on the accident early this afternoon. MBTA spokeswoman Lydia Rivera says an inspector came in contact with an exposed wire and was shocked, never lost consciousness and was taken to Boston Medical Center with a non-life threatening injury.

Switching problems at JFK/UMass are causing all sorts of problems on the Red Line tonight.

Alison: "Just took me 45 minutes to get from Park Street to JFK Umass with some chick coughing swine flu on me."

Laura Vogel: " 'We are experiencing high delays' - what does that even mean?? Red Line, Davis to Park, at least give us an ETA!"

Funktionslust: "Longest MBTA ride ever. Helped by 60 minute wait at JFK."

Jay Svoboda posts some video so you can hear the marching-band music blaring out of the loudspeakers at the JFK/UMass stop on the Red Line.

Nothing like signal problems on a Monday morning. This morning's best Red Line tweet:

T stuck between alewife & porter. missed the shuttle. mbta bus late. cornered on bus by stranger who Likes To Talk. yay monday.

And file this under: good to know:

So the food stand at the JFK/Umass stop was out of coffee. The employee went into the MBTA bathroom then proceeded to fill pot. No joke. Yum

On the Red Line at JFK/UMass (note to Herald: Trolleys don't run on that part of the Red Line).