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Can an entire train have a nervous breakdown?
By adamg on Wed, 04/23/2008 - 5:00pm
Quasit escapes from train 715 on the Franklin Line, which seems about ready to grind to a halt from the sheer weight of all the people now crammed into it:
... Ridership has increased enormously; every seat is full to capacity, the aisles are packed solid, and even the vestibules - which are supposed to be off-limits for passengers - are full of riders.
Yesterday there were 14 people riding in the vestibule that I was in. I was in the spot exactly between two cars; that spot is probably the most dangerous on the train, because it's the intersection between the two coaches. ... Fares haven't been collected on the #715 for weeks. Passengers are openly talking about giving up their passes and buying 12-ride tickets instead, because you can easily get a month or two of rides from one; the conductors simply can't check tickets. ...
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Comments
Whats wrong with riding in
Whats wrong with riding in the vestibules? Arent there seats in there?
vestibules are the spaces
vestibules are the spaces between trains between the coach doors I think. Where the people who like to lean up against the intercomm button and let everyone in on their semi-private conversations stand.
They are also designed to
They are also designed to absorb the impact of collisions by acting as crumple zones.
Not a place you really want to hang out.
Not Legal, Either
I had to cram into a Lowell Line train one morning at West Medford, and the conductors informed us that we could not ride there according to federal law because they are designed to crush in a crash. He made everyone push in.
Im still confused. I rarely
Im still confused. I rarely take commuter rail, and when I do its the two-floor ones.
Between cars, where the doors are theres an area with bench seating, space for wheelchairs (and maybe bikes). Isnt that the vestibule?
No, that's not the vestibule
The vestibule is the area between the sliding doors, where you walk from one car into another. When you get on or off a train, you do so in a vestibule. At least that's how things are on single-level trains, which are the ones I most often use.
If it has seats ...
then you can be there. It may be what functions as a vestibule on those trains, but I rarely take double deckers so I don't rightly know.
What I am talking about is the gray painted entry areas that link the cars on single deck trains. They have no seats and are where you enter flat or use the stairs, turn, and go through sliding doors into the coach. It isn't legal ride there unless you are a conductor passing through to the next coach or are entering/exiting the train.
Sometimes they put bikes there, but I've only rarely seen this in recent years.
Vestibule revealed
Hi, I'm Quasit.
You have it right, SwirlyGrrl - these were single-level coaches, and we were packed in the area that says "Passengers are not permitted to ride in this vestibule". I took a picture of that sign yesterday, just for laughs.
Apart from being a crumple zone, the vestibule - which does NOT have seats - is where two coaches meet. On sharp curves spaces open and close between the coaches. If you get your hand or leg stuck there, you won't get it back again in one piece!
And of course the outer doors are sometimes left open in the vestibule, which creates a definite chance of falling off the train.
Conductors used to force passengers off the vestibule and into the coaches, but that simply isn't possible any more; there hasn't been enough space for weeks. This is unprecedented in my experience. It used to be that once in a while a train would get that crowded, maybe a couple of times a year. But it's been every day now for weeks.
Like you, I haven't seen any bikes in the vestibules for years.
I'm still confused
yea. look it up: vestibule.
Sounds like the old days
Sounds like the old days when I had to take the train from Endicott to Back Bay in the late '70s/early '80s. They were so crowded I'd usually get close to a month out of a book of 12 or so tickets.
At least now the Franklin line doesn't have to detour through Dorchester to the other side of South Station because the tracks between Readville and Back Bay were being replaced.
And there aren't a bunch of decrepit Budd cars with windows so scratched and dirty you could barely tell where you were.
Get off my lawn!