On Lost in Boston, Mike reports that the last Boeing-Vertol trolley will make its final run tomorrow:
The train will leave Riverside station at approximately 11:00AM, make its way to Government Center, and leave at approx. 11:44AM for its final run to Riverside. Keep in mind this is a regular service trip and regular fares will be collected, however you're sure to see some "rail fans" with cameras and camcorders in hand!
Lyss marvels at an outbound Riverside driver who was not only pleasant but did nice things for riders:
... Our driver stopped and opened the door for someone who almost missed the train. She waited until a family had settled in with their stroller and several small children after they almost went flying across the aisle. After calling a middle aged couple up to the front to pay (I think this was around Fenway), she was gracious about their mistake upon learning that they were from Western Mass.
See, kids, if you're going to do a flash mobby kinda thing, here's how - get people to dress up like characters from the tea-party scene in "Alice in Wonderland," then get on the T, then commandeer the last car of a subway train and party like it's 1865.
Does bright orange make you more likely to want to stab somebody? Alyssa Boehm ponders that as a possible answer to the recent designation of Back Bay station as Stab City.
I have to take the Green Line (D line) from Longwood to Govt Center. How long should I expect this to take during a.m. rush hour? I don't trust the MBTA trip planner on their website.
The hot dogs slowly spin over and over and over again. Somebody must buy them, right?
TransitWorks is:
Dedicated to maintaining and improving the quality of the MBTA, and seeks to use customer outreach and feedback activities to help the MBTA provide you, the rider, with the best service possible.
They're currently looking for volunteers to take notes on Breda cars on the E branch of the Green Line.
Via Charlie on the MBTA.
As if you don't already have enough on your mind when you get on the subway ("Back Bay station is next; please be careful exiting the train - blood is slippery"), now you have to worry about being serenaded by the LaRouche Youth Movement:
Mats Tolander gives the MBTA high praise for a solid month of service on the Lowell commuter line and for a recent Green Line trip (Kenmore to North Station) that not only took 15 minutes but involved an act of some courtesy by a trolley driver.
The Bachelor in Porter Square, meanwhile, sings the praises of Mr. Robo-Voice on the Red Line for being accurate for a change at Porter.
Carpundit marvels at two aspects of the story of the T employee charged with feeding thousands of tokens into CharlieCard machines: The quality of the surveillance cameras the T uses and:
... Best news from the story? You can put your tokens in the machines. Now I know what to do with the dozens of #$*! tokens I have in my change jar.
WBZ-TV reports:
An electrician who worked for the MBTA for 20 years has been charged with stealing more than $40,000 in coins and tokens. Police say he used some of the money for dozens of $100 CharlieCards. ...
Iron Bowl and company drove to South Station today to hop on the Silver Line to see the USS John F. Kennedy, docked in South Boston, but after they paid their fares, they learned the T had suspended Silver Line service in that direction, because too many people were already trying to get on the ship:
... We could not even get a refund. ...
Charlie on the MBTA gets e-mail from somebody reporting that the T's online trip planner claims the best way to get from Brookline to South Station without walking much is to take the Green Line to Park Street, then the Red Line to JFK/UMass, then to get on the Red Line the other way to South Station.
There's no atmosphere on the moon, which means there's no weather, which would be great, since the Boston area's reaction to anything more than a light sprinkle or dusting of snow seems to be to fall completely apart, as Margalit proves with her breathless account of a battle-to-the-death struggle this morning to get down Rte. 9 and Brookline Avenue for a doctor's appointment - which started late because her doctors were engaged in a similar epic struggle on the Riverside line:
You know those cool above-ground maps the T installed in the 1970s - then never updated? Paul Levy was looking at one at Kenmore and noticed all the long-gone names:
... Hospital of the House of the Good Samaritan; Peter Bent Brigham Hospital; Jimmy Fund Research Lab; State Teachers College of Boston; Boston English High School; New England Deaconess Hospital; Beth Israel Hospital; Sears Roebuck and Company; Children's Hospital Medical Center; Boston Lying Inn Hospital; Joslin Clinic. ...
Charlie on the MBTA reports that Tom Menino wants legislation to make the MBTA change the name of Copley station to Copley/BPL station.
An MBTA lieutenant interviews the three guys behind Vendetta Gunn, a video about a couple of T detectives (the lieutenant found them while doing some Googling on Aqua Teen Hunger Force, natch):
Zolok, who experienced the Moscow subway during the 1980s, gets off the Red Line at Alewife last night and says The T could learn a thing or two about subway operation:
I could've gotten to Alewife faster if the MBTA had the foresight to hitch up our train to a team of oxen.
No joke, I was a young man when I boarded that train full of naive' hopes about overcoming "switching problems in Davis Square", decades later we limped into Alewife liked the starved survivors of Stalin's GULAG. ...
Russ Stein wishes the tall Metro hawker at Green Street would just go away:
... He's like seven feet tall and runs from one end of the station to the other shouting shit like, "Aw yeah, I've got your Metro!" and "It's a great day for a Metro!" while getting in the way of people trying to catch the train. I've also heard him muttering some ex-junkie Jesus bullshit when dodging him. ...
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