*psssssh* *squeal*

[dmaze]

I seem to have run into the Orange Line's emergency brakes more than usual recently. A couple of nights ago, I was heading home, the train left Haymarket, and immediately stopped; I think the driver forgot to flip the wayside 40 switch, the train left ATO territory, and the system said "no cab signals, must stop!" This morning we stopped headed into Downtown Crossing inbound (or, perhaps, right in front of the platform, but in the wrong direction).

Also, conflicting with a statement I made on zephyr a long while ago, it looks like the Orange Line does in fact have train stops; I noticed them at the outbound signal at Wellington, and now that I've thought to look around they do seem to be by every wayside signal. I haven't figured out if there's anything that actually happens if a train runs over one in the raised position, but I'd also think they'd have been removed at some point in the past 20 years if the current trains completely ignored them.

Comments

[eisenbud.livejournal.com]

Ah, cool. What about the other lines?

[dmaze]

I'm fairly sure that the green line, the ATO part of the Orange Line ("south of State"), and the red line don't. The blue line conceivably could, since it's entirely wayside-signalled rapid transit; the next time I'm around there (maybe looking at crvfty maps at State) I'll have a look.

On the Red...

[(Anonymous)]

While they're not train stops per se, I recently found out that the wayside transponders on the Red Line (which control the automated stop announcements, except when they break) were originally intended to also stop the train at stations, thus turning the 01800 cars into a sort of Automated Guideway Transit system, although each train would still have a motorperson. Of course, we all know how well they work for the stop announcements, and when they rigged up a test train to stop based on the transponders, and ran it from Park to Alewife, it made one stop, at Kendall, and breezed through the others, occasionally stopping maybe 500 feet beyond the platform.

Re: On the Red...

[dmaze]

I've heard the statement from a couple of people (who claim to be one link from T Central Command) that the red line is "half an upgrade" away from full ATO, which would include automated station stops; that's consistent with your statement.

(Also, you should ask your cubemate for a livejournal invite code so you don't need to keep posting here as "anonymous." :-)