Was there an accident on the Red Line? 12/13

Is anyone aware of an accident on the Red Line tonight? I was entering the gate at Central Square Inbound as a train rushed in blaring its airhorn. I looked in and all of the cars were vacant. It shot through without stopping and--I'm not sure if it was the station or the train--but there was a heavy stench in the air like burning dust.

Then I got on a train and it stayed in the tunnel between Central and Kendall for 5-10 minutes. When it got to Kendall it sat there for another 5 minutes opening and closing its doors periodically.

At Park Street the loudspeaker was warning passengers to stand behind the yellow line. I rarely hear that message.

Anyway. It was just a bizarre chain of events. Is it typical for a completely empty train to rush through a station without stopping?

mattster wrote:Is anyone aware of an accident on the Red Line tonight? I was entering the gate at Central Square Inbound as a train rushed in blaring its airhorn. I looked in and all of the cars were vacant. It shot through without stopping and--I'm not sure if it was the station or the train--but there was a heavy stench in the air like burning dust.

Then I got on a train and it stayed in the tunnel between Central and Kendall for 5-10 minutes. When it got to Kendall it sat there for another 5 minutes opening and closing its doors periodically.

At Park Street the loudspeaker was warning passengers to stand behind the yellow line. I rarely hear that message.

Anyway. It was just a bizarre chain of events. Is it typical for a completely empty train to rush through a station without stopping?

Doesn't sound that out of the ordinary. That burning smell was probably just from the brake shoes/pads (whatever these cars have). I frequently notice this smell on the Red Line from the older cars.

An empty train could just be one that was taken out of service for any number of reasons (probably a mechanical problem and it was being deadheaded back to the shops). The horn blasts are pretty common when running thru a station without stopping.

As for sitting between Central and Kendall, there's nothing unusual about that!

Red Line service north of the river has been abysmal lately. Slowdowns, unexplained stops, that infuriating jerky start-and-stop running, and long waits have all become common lately. Trains creep along between Harvard and Central, and often between Central and Kendall, Porter and Harvard, and even Porter and Davis.

In my opinion, the cab signal system on the Red Line has never worked right. The trains ran fast on the South Shore line in the early days, but the unexplained starts and stops between stations have been going on since the late 1970's. I'm assuming this is an MBTA thing, because other rapid transit systems with automatic operation seem to run far more smoothly (and IMO it has nothing to do with the age of the original Cambridge-Dorchester route, because the T has basically rebuilt the entire Red Line since the 1980's).

JD

Took 20 minutes to get between Porter and Harvard yesterday morning, and almost 15 more to get from Harvard to Central. Accelerate 100 feet...dead stop...3-4 minute wait...accelarate 100 feet...dead stop...another wait...utterly unintellegible announcement...rinse, repeat. Wasn't traffic ahead. I waited for freaking ever for that train to arrive.

Pretty much every day this week something's been screwed up in the A.M. going inbound, and the speeds have been godawful slow. Must be that age-old "cars can't run deep underground when it's less than 30 degrees aboveground" problem or something.