No Red Line service, Sat-Sun, January 2-3

[ron_newman]

The Red Line between Harvard and Alewife will be shut down for repairs this coming Saturday and Sunday, to be replaced with shuttle bus service.

Comments

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

They wouldn't listen (http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/1992583.html) until an actual derailment (http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20091225broken_wheel_caused_red_line_derailment/) happened in that stretch of red line. I'm just glad no one had to get hurt for someone to frickin' do something already.

I thought this was due to a broken wheel.

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

But I suppose it's possible a wheel broke BECAUSE of track misalignment.

Re: I thought this was due to a broken wheel.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I don't think the broken track caused the broken wheel, but I suspect the broken track caused the broken wheel to be a problem there rather than somewhere else between Boston's South End and Cambridge. Another instance where a series of small problems turned into one big problem, rather than a single major event occurring.

Re: I thought this was due to a broken wheel.

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

I agree. These chains of events can snowball into unpredictable disasters, at times. Glad they are working on it. But it's only down for 2 days. So, it's likely to be patches and cosmetic work.

Re: I thought this was due to a broken wheel.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

I'd guess that the derailment happened at Alewife not because of a track defect, but because that's the first place the train would switch to the other track after leaving South Boston northbound.

Nobody said that the tracks between Harvard and Alewife are out of alignment yet. The report said water leakage in the tunnel could cause the tracks to shift in the future.

Re: I thought this was due to a broken wheel.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

It's not like neon signs are going to declare when those tracks are sufficiently out of whack to cause a derailment. That's probably why the writer of the report pointing out how problematic this particular maintenance delay is "told The Associated Press on Wednesday he would not ride the portion of the Red Line highlighted in the report" (source (http://www3.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO128679/)). It's really nice he has that option; my companion does not if he wants to get to work on time and I'm pretty damn worried about it.

Re: I thought this was due to a broken wheel.

[avjudge]

Yeah, the statement they put out said, if I understand it right, that it's because the train switched directions so what had been a trailing (broken) wheel became a leading (broken) wheel, or something like that, and what didn't cause problems in one position on the train did when that position (relative to direction of travel) changed.