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This morning's massive Red Line delays caused by yet another train just rolling out of the Braintree yard

A two-car Red Line train came out of the Braintree yard when it wasn't supposed to around 5:30 a.m. and then didn't stop until it got about 800 feet north of the station, the MBTA reports.

The incident occurred as MBTA personnel were readying Red Line trains for the start of service. The two-car train set had diminished braking capacity and it came to a stop approximately 800 feet north of Braintree Station. There were no injuries nor damage, but service was disrupted as T personnel worked to return the disabled, two-car set to the rail yard. The MBTA notified the FTA and DPU of the incident, and a full investigation is underway. Investigators will work to determine whether the rules and procedures for moving trains were properly followed.

On a recording of MBTA radio frequencies, the operator of the short train - consisting of older cars 1640 and 1641 - can be heard urgently calling to a dispatcher: "Sir, it's not stopping!"

The latest rolling mishap comes a little more than a month after the Federal Transit Administration issued a series of emergency safety directives for the T - one of which covered trains just seeming to start down Red Line tracks on their own. On May 30, another train came out of the Braintree yard and started up the tracks towards Boston with nobody on board.

The T adds:

In accordance with the FTA special directives, the MBTA is taking corrective actions to enhance safety around the movement of rail cars in yards. Accompanied with plans to increase staffing at rail yards, the MBTA recently issued a series of new safety directives, trainings, and polices regarding train movements in rail yard facilities and car houses.

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Comments

First it was a mechanical problem now they are forced to admit they were caught lying to the public.

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This seems like a mechanical problem to me: the mechanism of the train that was supposed to keep it in place had a problem. A selective truth, to be sure, but it's not particularly necessary that riders be up to date on everything that goes wrong. A train did something wrong and they had to have a delay while they fixed that situation.

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that they start without a driver, even.

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Each Red Line car was required to read the safety directive before returning to work. That should do the trick.

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According to the transit history.org website, those cars were built in 1969 or 1970 which is 10 years before the Braintree branch even existed. They were built by Pullman Standard, better known for manufacturing sleeping cars in the early 1900s. They’re 10 years older than the rusty Orange Line cars. When they were new, the antique Mattapan trolley cars were only 25 years old, clanging down Huntington Ave. through JP.

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Ghosts, surely.

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