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.
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.
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.
Re: I thought this was due to a broken wheel.
Date: 2010-01-02 03:19 am (UTC)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.
Date: 2010-01-02 03:48 am (UTC)Re: I thought this was due to a broken wheel.
Date: 2010-01-03 01:48 am (UTC)