The Orange Line signal woes between North Station and Back Bay continue, so the T is advising people to take the Green Line instead, which is great if you're want to get between North Station and Back Bay, not so hot if your final destination is, oh, somewhere closer to Oak Grove or Forest Hills.
How bad is it? In addition to signals not signalling, here's State Street station shortly after 3 p.m.
The tracks are getting better and better, but, oops, something blew out all the power on the Red, Orange, Green and Blue lines around 1:30 p.m. The MBTA reported about 15 minutes later that Johnny plugged the power cord back in, except, oops, briefly not on the Orange Line between Stony Brook and Forest Hills.
Except: Read more.
You can't tell from a photo, of course, but Sebastian Stockman checked in from Downtown Crossing this morning: "Downtown Crossing smells…clean?!?"
The day did not start auspiciously on the Red Line, where riders were forced into early morning bustitution between Braintree and JFK/UMass because, the T reports an overnight maintenance vehicle derailed at Wollaston.
Meanwhile, over on the Orange Line, riders faced delays, first due to a recalcitrant switch at Oak Grove and later because of a signal problem at Forest Hills.
Passengers being evacuated from dead Orange Line train via the tracks. From video by Tim Lawrence.
And he's off!
If you spot Heshan de Silva-Weeramuni on the T today, say hi, but understand if he doesn't have time to chat: He's on a race to see if he can set a record for the fastest time ever for visiting all T subway stops in one day. Read more.
Boston firefighters responded to the outbound side of the Jackson Square Orange Line station around 12:30 p.m. on a report of a person under the train. Read more.
The MBTA says there won't be any Orange Line trains between Oak Grove and North Station this weekend and no service between Wellington and North station June 24-30. Read more.
You know the drill: They have to shut a major part of the Orange Line for some preventative maintenance they weren't able to get to when they shut the entire line for a month of preventive maintenance in 2022, this time between Back Bay and Wellington for ten days starting Tuesday. The T advises: Read more.
Remember when the T said the cure for the old, wheezing Orange Line cars was to buy new ones? The T reported, at 6:26 a.m., delays on the Orange Line because of a dead train at Wellington.
The MBTA started the morning by announcing delays on the Orange Line due to a dead new train near North Station.
Boy, it sure rained buckets early this morning, huh? In case you managed to sleep through it all, you could still get a feel for just how much rain fell inside Ruggles station, where Handmaid captured some of the many fine barrels the T put in to capture all that water inside the station.
When the T hired CRRC to build hundreds of new cars despite not having any experience with American subways but at a price that was just too good to pass up, the contract contained penalty clauses in case the company was late. CommonWealth Beacon reports the T will be paying CRRC $148 million more - and will waive up to $131 million in penalties if CRRC delivers all the cars by the end of 2027, four years late. Both sides blame the pandemic and restrictions on Chinese companies by the Trump administration.
The Orange Line has a photo of some old Orange Line cars crossing Rte. 9 - on flatbed trucks.
The MBTA reports ongoing delays on the Orange Line this morning due to signal problems near Community College.
Not everything that goes wrong on the T is the T's fault, it seems. First it was the little duck and today, the T says, it had to shut the Orange Line between Forest Hills and Back Bay after an overhead Amtrak power line unspooled or snapped or something near Ruggles, causing problems for the neighboring subway line. Read more.
WCVB reports MBTA General Manager Phil Eng said today that the power cable that shorted out or blew up or something that tripped all the other power cables at North Station to shut down, taking the Blue, Green and Orange lines with them didn't belong to National Grid - it was the MBTA's own cable. Read more.
A man screaming about masks attacked a 69-year-old woman at the State Street Orange Line stop Wednesday afternoon, ripping her mask off, knocking her to the floor and trying to drag her to the tracks before a bystander intervened, Transit Police and WBZ report. Read more.
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