Boylston

Christoper tweets from Boylston this morning that a Sob Story Guy held a trolley door open and refused to let it close until somebody gave him some money.

The MBTA said today it is firing the driver responsible for a collision at Boylston station last week that sent three dozen people to the hospital with minor injuries and caused $500,000 in damage to trolleys.

Acting MBTA General Manager Jonathan Davis said the driver told investigators he had come off a midnight-to-8 a.m. shift at another job when he started his first run of the day on the Green Line at 11 a.m. - about 45 minutes before the collision at Boylston.

Davis said he could not say if the driver, who had been driving for the T full time, fell asleep but that he was clearly "inattentive" when he ran his train into a stopped train at the station. He said the T's investigation had ruled out any physical problems with the tracks or trolleys and that the driver admitted everything seemed to be working fine in the moments before the collision.

Davis said the T has no policy against second jobs or requirements that workers inform managers about second jobs, but that drivers are expected to be fully alert while driving trains - and that the three-hour gap between the end of his second job and the start of his first run on the Green Line did not leave the driver enough time to get adequate sleep.

He declined to name the driver and the location and nature of the second job.

The MBTA has released this surveillance video of yesterday's incident at Boylston station. The Globe reports the T has ruled out equipment failure.

NECN tweets:

They are now not expected to attend.

In other Green Line news, riders with AT&T phones report they now work in the tunnel between Kenmore and Park Street.

When I got on on the second car of an inbound trolley at Hynes early this afternoon, it was fairly crowded, and the back half of the car was packed with high-school kids.

About halfway between Arlington and Boylston, WHAM, the train slammed to a stop. Some guy began yelling "Is everybody OK?" The operator got on the PA and asked the same question. Everybody was. And then the operator got back on and said "You kids back there better stop fooling around, somebody's going to get hurt."

Photographynatalia captured a moment at Boylston on the Green Line yesterday.

Copyright Photographynatalia. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

Outbound service on the Green Line was briefly disrupted around 12:30 a.m. when the top of a Green Line car caught fire at Boylston station.

Nicole Frances photographed some post-fire action on the trolley roof.

Witness the recently applied grey paint on the floor of Boylston Station, which has almost completely worn off in about three weeks.

OTOH, it could be that this "necessary" project was supervised by one of those "no-show" workers.

Dead trolley at Boylston causing problems.