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Mattapan Line riders get a little break from the T

Hold that trolley!

The MBTA has installed a signal system at Ashmont that will keep Mattapan trolleys from leaving if a Red Line train is about to pull into the station.

T spokesman Joe Pesaturo said the system comes in response to complaints from Red Line riders who would get out of their train just in time to see a trolley pulling away.

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Comments

I swear there used to be something like this at Broadway station 50 years ago. The bus would wait if the sign for train in station was on. Anyone else remember these at stations?

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Wow, they just thought of this now? Who says innovation is dead at the T?!

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I used to ride both the train and the trolley every day for years, and I recall there being another system for telling when a train was coming. It was a series of lights, mounted on the far wall of the trolley platform, easily seen by the trolley driver. It looked something like this...

[OOOOOOOOOOOO]

... with each light, as near as I could figure out, a stop on the line. As given above, if a train was at, say, Fields Corner, the second light from the right would be lit. That way, a trolley driver could see exactly how far away a train was from Ashmont.

Does anyone else remember that? Can anyone verify that the way I describe it was actually how it functioned? Thanks!

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

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I rememmber those lights at the old Ashmont station as well, and I believe that is how it worked.

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There's a holding light in the Alewife busway. It's an unmarked yellow light on a post. But most bus drivers have no idea what it means.

Several Alewife buses run very infrequently, so missing one because of a late train is a big deal.

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There are train hold lights that come on at Forest Hills as well to let bus drivers know a train is coming in. It seems some drivers though take it as a signal to hurry up and leave.

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There's one at Wonderland too. Unfortunately, there always seems to be a backup of trains waiting to enter the station, especially at rush hour. So if there is a train that's entering the station but it can't move until the train that's at the station clears the platform, the bus driver doesn't bother to wait.

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to signal the outbound buses to wait. It was a fairly obscure set of lights, not a big HOLD sign, though.

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There is or was one on the Green line at Park headed toward Lechmere
to hold for the Red Line. In fact that one had both an inbound and outbound light so that the driver would know which stairs to expect the riders to ascend. Sadly, they never heeded it anyway.
It's right by the gates, where a driver could see it.

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to make sure that all passengers who exit the Red LIne there can get on the Green Line before it leaves. During most of the day, there is far too much Green Line traffic to hold a train for Red Line passengers.

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The green line has this as well at park street, the red inboundout bound signs are to hold the last trolleys of the night for the last red line train

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I remember a sign at Ashmont that said 17 minutes to park street. 50 years later it takes thirty minutes on a good day

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The other innovation at Ashmont is the wanted posters posted at the Police booth in the busway. You should see the crowd that checks out the wanted posters. They even have a picture of Whitey

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