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Signal woes on the Red Line once more turn the ride home into a big chore

By adamg on Tue, 09/05/2017 - 5:32pm

UPDATE, 5:55 p.m. The T has gone to "moderate."

Of course, the signal problems that caused the Red Line to creep this morning, although this time they're at Alewife and, so far at least, the delays are only "minor," the MBTA reports - phrasing that Meri would take issue with:

20+ minutes from S. Sta. And just now at Harvard. Crawling btwn stops. Standing by AGAIN.

Neighborhoods: 
Cambridge
Free tagging: 
Alewife
Red Line


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Comments

By anon on Tue, 09/05/2017 - 5:36pm.

This is my first rodeo!

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By Sock_Puppet on Wed, 09/06/2017 - 7:37am.

The Glob today had this precious line:

The severe delays that struck the Red Line Tuesday morning and stranded commuters for several hours exposed the subway system's aging signal system, an Achilles heel that the MBTA will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to fix over the next six years.

So I'm no classicist, but I read a bit, and I remember Achilles as this wicked tough dude, like the best warrior ever, almost godlike. Killed Hector in the Trojan War. Dipped in the river Styx by his Nereid mom. Invulnerable in his whole body except his heel. Brad Pitt plays him in the movie.

The only thing the MBTA has in common with Achilles is the slo-mo.

MBTA isn't Achilles. Isn't even Brad Pitt. Signal system, plus electrical system, plus... rails, trains, maintenance... these are all cited as weaknesses of the MBTA when it breaks down. The MBTA's signal system isn't an unusual exception to perfection, it's consistent with the rest of it, like Homer Simpson's heel.

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