The lack of news coverage about it after ~8 PM indicates to me that it was a suicide. Very sad. Not first time there has been a suicide in that location.
Just to recap:
P528 struck the person at about 17:30 at the Cherry Street grade crossing in downtown Ashland Ma.
Outbound P527 was held at Framingham, P583 was held at West Natick, and P531 was held at Natick Center, all on their usual track 2. P529 must have made it into Framingham on track 1.
The plan was to implement bustitution between Ashland and Framingham. There was plenty of trains east of Framingham for service back to the city, but I'm not sure what equipment they were planning on using west of Ashland. Perhaps the P528 equipment? Maybe P532 equipment?
At the time of the incident, P525 was already in the area of Framingham where it terminates at 17:23. It usually goes back inbound from Framingham as P530 departing at 18:15. This P525 / P530 equipment was sent inbound from Framingham at about 17:50, operating as a ~30 min delayed P528 from Framingham on the usual evening rush hour inbound track 1. P530 was annulled.
Outbound P533 took the relief crew for the incident train (P528) and departed South Station on time at 18:05. P533 was held at Auburndale and then CP 11 for a brief delay while "P528" cleared track 1 at CP 11. P533 then ran outbound on track 1 to get around the stopped trains on track 2 with a priority move to get the relief crew out to the incident location.
P527 was given permission to proceed past the incident at 5 mph via a Form D and left Framingham at about 19:07. P583 was then allowed to proceed into Framingham station, where it terminated and discharged all of its passengers, who crossed over and boarded P533 which arrived at Framingham at about 19:15.
P533 departed Framingham at 19:25.
The P583 equipment was used as a delayed P532 from Framingham to Boston, and it departed Framingham at 19:29. I have no idea what happened to the 'real' P532 from Worcester.
After P583 departed Framingham, P531 was allowed to proceed into Framingham on track 2 and then continued west.
At about 19:35, three buses escorted by an MBTA pickup truck arrived in Framingham, where the bus 'inspector' in the pickup was surprised to learn the buses weren't needed.
The last part of the story that I heard was the dispatcher telling the original P528 equipment that upon getting a relief crew, it would make a reverse move back to Ashland station where the passengers on that train would disembark for bus service from Ashland (not clear how far the buses would take them - just to Framingham to wait for the next inbound train or somewhere further east).
Only thing I lost track of was the P529 equipment. On the schedule it arrives in Framingham at 18:15 and then turns to go back as P534 at 18:45. It didn't go inbound on time, since P533 was on track 1. And it wasn't in Framingham between ~7 PM and 7:30 PM. It must have gone into hiding somewhere west of Framingham.
Again, a sad situation. IMHO, Keolis did a really good job of moving trains around and making very dynamic changes to maximize the passenger throughput west of Framingham. Tweets from the @MBTA_CR indicate that they were even trying to take into account passenger loads when deciding how to get trains west of Framingham (moving the pax from P583 to P533). Also, kudos to stopping delayed trains within station limits so passengers could get off and escape if they so desired. I truly believe that if this had happened under the old CSX NA dispatching system, the trains would have just stacked up at signals or behind each other, and there would have been no workarounds applied. And the delays would have been MUCH longer (speaking from experience there...)
Somewhat understandably, the communications to the passengers were really bad. I had a good overview by piecing together rider reports from various tweets along with tweets from public safety agencies and Keolis. Watching the PTIS / GPS data gave me very good geographical understanding of what was happening. Listening to the dispatcher filled in some gaps, but it was clear that the various train conductors couldn't be provided with as much info as they really needed to keep the passengers as informed as they should have been. The dispatcher had way too much to do - keep trains organized and moving, figure out how to deal with the incident area, shuffle trains on the Framingham to Boston stretch once the schedule went out the window, tell the train crews what to tell the passengers, answer questions from the trains crews, and then communicate everything back to the Trainmasters or whoever needed to know on the back end. They really should consider adding a second person to the dispatcher desk just to tell the train crews what the plan is and how it will be implemented - and let the dispatcher handle all the actual dispatching and coordination.
The largest communication gap was with the trains stopped at West Natick and Natick. All the @MBTA_CR and "T-alert" text messages talked about bustitution between Framingham and Ashland, but it wasn't clear to the passengers stranded at the Natick stations if they would be bused from where they were or how they would get anywhere. And the conductors didn't know either. Obviously someone had a plan, and it was a pretty good one, but the info couldn't get pushed out to those who needed it. My idea of a second voice on the mainline frequency is not a bad idea, but not perfect - you quickly run out of room for all those needed conversations on the same frequency at the same time. Maybe push some of those logistical conversations over to the help desk frequency, but I'm not sure changing channels back and forth is a good idea either. No easy answers.
Finally, the @MBTA_CR twitter feed eventually just looked hopelessly opaque (IMHO) by continuing to call the situation a 'prior medical emergency' hours later, even after the fatality had been confirmed by the @MBTATransitPD twitter feed. I really can't understand the point of withholding information about what really happened, but perhaps there is a good reason. Unfortunately, the withholding of the information is probably feeding the perception of a lack of transparency and mistrust of all things MBTA by the general public (who really doesn't differentiate between Keolis and the MBTA).
"Twitter Dave"
Engineering Manager, MBTA
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