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Drunk van driver crashes into Red Line train
By Ron Newman on Fri, 02/19/2010 - 9:43am
This morning around midnight on the Longfellow Bridge, according to Boston.com. Note to Globe: Red Line cars are not "subway trolleys".
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Comments
And Channel 7 is reporting there were no passengers on the train
Sounds like Pete Bouchard has been demoted to "Special MBTA accident correspondent".
boston.com story, now with more facts
Guy is from Everett; crews worked until 4:45 a.m. to get the tracks ready for the morning commute (so yay, dedicated MBTA workers!). Also, they're now referring just to a "train," rather than a "subway trolley" - Newman gets results!
The system works!
Thank God they shut the entire system down from 1A to 5A every day! It's cases just like this where a drunk driver plows into an empty train through a giant metal railing on a bridge that prove why the MBTA can NEVER run a 24 hour operation! There HAS to be time in their daily schedule to make these repairs when they're needed! You just never know when so it HAS to be time made available every night!
That's right, its not like
That's right, its not like track, ties, third-rail, power lines, signal cables, radio systems, or vent fans ever need maintenance or something.
That's right!
I like this game!
That's right, it's not like all of those things don't need maintenance on transit systems that run 24/7/365 or something.
Of course very few two-track
Of course very few two-track subway systems in the world run 24/7/365 (London, Paris, Moscow, and Tokyo don't), and NYC, which does run 24/7/365 has a lot of four track segments and a lot of powered cross-overs and bi-directional signals to accomodate single track operation on segments where only two tracks exist. Guess what, Boston doesn't!
the system will always be broken
These kind of repairs, where someone crashes into a train or something similar, would most likely happen immediately rather than just waiting for regular, scheduled maintenance between 1A-5A.
I wonder if he was driving drunk because he missed the last train...
Sure
But my bigger gripe is that they touted how they worked really hard to get it done and did it before trains started running so it didn't affect anyone's trip!
Well, that's hunky-dory! But that's only because they don't run trains between 1A and 5A every day!
I didn't trip on my commute to work today...but that's only because I drove, not walked! I mean, woohoo for the MBTA service team...but they sorta stacked the deck in their favor.
The van ripped up a lot of
The van ripped up a lot of third rail on both the north and southbound sides. It could easily have taken more then four hours to remove the damaged rail and cables, bring the replacemnt material to the job site, install the replacement equipment, and test the replacement equipment. If they had had to bus from Harvard to Park St. during the morning rush-hour, it would not have been a pretty sight.