For Caren Savone it’s a necessary evil….
“I wouldn’t say reliable, definitely not affordable, but it is a service and I couldn’t live without it.”
For Ivan Nesterov, it’s something of a throwback….
“I come from Europe. It’s incomparable to European rails. How So? Far inferior, ya know, this is something out of the 60s in Europe.”
For Sara Seager, it’s an eternal headache….
“I’m ashamed to live in Boston. Do you know what it’s like to have to cancel meetings and not to get to work on time day after day after day?”
On this cold wet, fall night on the rails, memories of the nightmare winter were surfacing, riders all too aware that is once again poised to rear its ugly head. And as daily commuter Sridhar Anarra explains, hope does not exactly spring eternal here on the Fitchburg line.
“If we have same bad weather like last year, you can expect the same thing. We haven’t changed anything we didn’t do anything so get ready for it,” she says laughing.
With all due respect, Sridhar, Ken Foster would beg to differ.
“Well I can tell you I’m probably the most hated person in the company.”
Foster is the director of quality and performance improvement for Keolis – the private company that operates the commuter rail for the MBTA.
While folks have been trying to enjoy the summer, I’ve been hounding them about winter.
As we stroll through the MBTA’s sprawling maintenance facility in East Cambridge, Foster shows off some of their new winter equipment, acquired courtesy of funds from Gov. Charlie Baker’s $83 million winter resiliency plan.
“This large piece of equipment is a Knox Kershaw snow fighter, that has plows that can clear snow 15 feet, either side of the rail…”
This gleaming beast is one of ten new plows that will be stationed at either end of each line come winter – part of a new strategy. There are also new tractors for clearing platforms, and piles of replacement traction motors. And you know those notorious switches we seem to hear about every time it drips below zero?
“So we’re doing some improvements some switch heater improvements, some switch heater improvements, this year we’ll do 10 of 65 and that will help increase the reliability of those switches,” says Kershaw.
There will also be more trains at Keolis’ disposal. 40 new rail cars arrived defective in 2014. In January, they were all sidelined. As of last week, 38 were up and running.
“The equipment definitely helps, but I think the most important thing we are doing and we will do is have a better line of communication.”
To aid in this, Keolis is finalizing a comprehensive plan that calls for three to four different levels of weather-dependent service for the winter. Each level will have a preset schedule, and a communications plan in place to notify riders via signs, text message, the web and social media – in advance - of any level change.
“After we give them that notification that there’s a level change, they will be able to go through their schedule and easily know where their train is, what trains are running, what trains aren’t running.”
And in a “lemons to lemonade scenario,” Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said that the MBTA has also poured much of the 7 million-plus dollars in fines Keolis has wracked up for poor service over the past two years into better communications system.
“The biggest investment and the one’s where I hoping people will start to really see it paying dividends is that we invested in communications so that people will get more accurate information, faster, and delivered in a way that people understand.”
Those dividends have yet to materialize according to riders. Many said that electronic signs at the stations and the text alert system remain – too often - vague or inaccurate. On this day, I witnessed the confusion first hand. As we crawled to a near stop, the conductor addressed the front of the car announcing a 20-minute delay…
“The conductor said that there is a car on the tracks and so we’ll be getting off at a different stop and having to wait.”
Meanwhile at the back of that same car, chaos reigned supreme …
“Did you hear what the guy said?” asked one passenger; another replied “I didn’t even hear a guy…” no one knew what was going on.
As text alerts started pinging phones, it told a different story….
“That’s what the guy was saying when he was walking through—that there was a car on the tracks but this says that we’ve got a 20-minute delay for slippery tracks,” a passengers relays to me, “Nobody talks to anybody else, ya know?”
So, there’s no question that time, effort and money have all been spent putting a plan in place for this winter. But as a saying popular among CEO’s goes, “vision without execution is hallucination.” And despite the mild weather this week, make no mistake, Winter is coming.
If you’re a regular T rider and there’s some aspect of the service that you are curious to know more about, email Edgar at curiositydesk@wgbhnews.org. He might just look into it for you.
