Around 1:30 a.m., taken out with serious leg injuries, Boston Fireman tweets.

That came several hours after a woman was found unconscious on the commuter-rail tracks near South Station.

Rob Bellinger reports, wonders if this'll kill off LimoLiner.

Channel 4: Amtrak train kills one in Hyde Park.

When Cleary Squared heard the call on a scannner summoning a couple of fire companies down to the Hyde Park commuter-rail station, he headed down to see what was up:

... The Boston Police that were there spotted us from the Track 3 ramp and ordered us to move away. A few minutes later an officer taped up both the stairs and the ramps to both sides of Hyde Park Station to get rid of "gawkers". When he returned from his duty, the officer told the three of us, "Say a prayer." ...

Quasify reports what happens when the overhead wires get "ripped down." It's not fun.

Andrew Teman discovers rich, sucky goodness when trying to reserve a seat on Acela to New York.

So this barhopping New Yorker up in Boston climbs on top of an Acela train at South Station late one night in 2006, reaches up and is promptly zapped with 27,000 or so volts, leading to serious burns and injuries, including the loss of his left arm.

Naturally, he's suing Amtrak for gross negligence, because it failed to do enough to keep idiots from climbing on top of trains and grabbing hold of electrical wires.

In his suit (original complaint), Brian Hopkins argues Amtrak should have known people routinely trespass at South Station and so should have turned off the electricity at night, parked trains away from the station and warned people that grabbing hold of high-voltage power lines could cause serious injuries.

In its reply, Amtrak basically argues Hopkins's injuries were his own damn fault.

Hopkins (and his parents) originally brought the suit in a Queens state court, because he lives there; Amtrak won a request to have the suit moved to federal court, because it was created by Congress and is still half owned by the federal government. The suit is now before federal district court in Brooklyn.

Via the Herald.

To seek $1 billion to make it world class.

Dan Kennedy and Chris Helms both write about how Amtrak is sucking this week, not so much because of track work in Connecticut as the way the railroad is handling replacement bus service and, in Helms's case, not notifying riders with reservations about the suddent change.

Location: Just outside of New York City. Last night. Announcement on Acela #2193, as the train stops:

“The train dumped. We are hoping to reset the brakes and get underway.”

Pause. Noise from front end of train.

“The train dumped again. That is the noise you heard.”

It did sound roughly like someone taking a large dump. Hence, I am guessing, the etymology of the term.

Atari_Age writes that from aboard an Amtrak train stuck in Rhode Island:

... Amtrak, you're a rotting corpse of a once impressive railway system.

You completely and utterly suck. ...