Boondoggle Express
Cool icons of the day: Entries in this year’s pixelpalooza
I’d been wondering whether the slowness of the new Green Line trains was all in my mind, but this morniing cured me of any doubts. I watched an all-new train creep through a major intersection, and then, instead of turning around and heading for the nearest bus stop, I climbed on board. I measure the first half of my commute in Metro time - if I finish the Metro while the train is still above ground, that means something is amiss, or I’m on a new train.
The conductor was feeling chatty. He admitted that the trains were slower - you get where you’re going, it just takes longer to get there - and even explained the technical difficulties. Apparently there is no “play to the wheels” of the new trains. He also mentioned something about the old trains wearing the tracks down in certain ways, but I was too far away to follow the exposition very well. In any event, it explains the derailments. I suspect they happen at curves in the track. That also explains why every new train I’ve gone inbound on has gone out of service at Park Street instead of making the last stop at Government Center. The Government Center station is one big curve, and these things wouldn’t squeak going around it, they’d derail.
That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.
PS: I forgot to mention that the fast old trains catch up to the slow new trains, so the new ones then have to go express. The chatty conductor had to walk down the train to the “cheap seats in the back” to tell us we were going express to BU East (not to be confused with going any faster). Either there is no intercom at all beyond the annoying automated stop announcements, or the intercom was broken. The even more annoying piercing beep beep beep beep that goes off whenever the train doors close was, unfortunately, in fine working order.
April 3rd, 2003 at 1:24 pm
Proof the new Green Line trains are slow
Jemima writes: I measure the first half of my commute in Metro time - if I finish the Metro while