Low T karma

[dmaze]

Yesterday I got hosed trying to go from Harvard to Davis; I got on the train, it left, and didn't stop again until Alewife. When we got there I vaguely heard an announcement say this train will run express to harvard so I got off and waited for the next train. $!@#ing 16xx red line trains with the dead PA systems. (Car 01638, IIRC, if anyone cares.)

Also, my T pass, with the big letter "C" on it and the word "combo"? It's really a bus pass. It makes the happy beep when I try to get on busses, but refuses to let me through any turnstiles getting on the subway. Haven't tried the green line yet, but I've definitely failed to get on the train at Kendall (both ways), Harvard, Davis, and Sullivan. I bet it'll work on the green line because a bus pass is good enough there.

Comments

[eichin.livejournal.com]

I was delayed by that, if it was the around-3pm outage, though I was going from Central to Davis. It seems like they didn't announce the express nature until the central->harvard leg, I didn't hear it in the station; given that the train emptied out when it was announced, I'm not sure they should have bothered, either (other than in terms of moving hardware around.)

Of course, I'd brought a book, because I already have reduced expectations of red line reliability - it's not that these failures happen often, it's that they happen when I try and use the T :-)

[dmaze]

No, this was more around 6:30. I wasn't clear that there was actually an outage, but if things get sufficiently behind they do run trains express (frequently Park to Harvard to Alewife to Harvard; if you get stuck on a Harvard-Alewife express, it's often express back to Harvard). The 018xx trains have an automated announcement for it, and in the normal voice, not the "the destination of this train is" voice. And the 017xx trains actually have working PA systems so you can hear them make the announcement.

[eichin.livejournal.com]

Ah, sure, 6:30 could have been congestion. The 3ish thing had lengthy but incomprehensible announcements preceding the eventual arrival of trains, which is why I'm pretty sure something disruptive had happenned.

Today's train experience was much saner - the usual scheduling hell ("The commuter rail is for commuters, any other use is entirely accidental" - an hour from concord to north station, an hour layover there, an hour transit out to Newburyport. And then an hour on foot, because the newburyport station is in this industrial/swampland area, and not particularly near the town :-) but it all performed "to spec". The big disappointment was just how scratched up the windows were - if I hadn't brought a book, I'd have been in pain from trying to squint at the scenery...

[dmaze]

From looking at maps, I didn't get the impression that the Newburyport commuter rail was quite that far from the town proper, but it's not entirely in the middle of things, no. Of the two lines that go through Beverly, the Rockport line has much nicer scenery, though.