The Herald reports Republican Jack E. Robinson was outside Park Street last night, calling for the feds to pour enough money into the MBTA to eliminate fares and to spend $3 billion on a bullet train to Springfield.

Brian Hopkins, a New Yorker up in Boston for a little barhopping a few years back, sued Amtrak in 2008, alleging the railroad failed to alert him that climbing on top of a train at 4 a.m. and grabbing hold of the overhead wires might result in such severe burns that he'd lose one of his arms.

Hopkins has since added the MBTA to his lawsuit (of course). As is often the case with federal lawsuits, the wheels grind slowly. Hopkins' lawyers now want Amtrak to hand over all the documentation they have on people who have ever been electrocuted by grabbing catenary wires in general and dating back to 1991 at South Station specifically.

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.