Update, 4:30 p.m.:
A Massachusetts transportation official says “operator error” is the focus of an investigation into what caused a six-car passenger train to leave a suburban Boston station without a driver.
None of the approximately 50 passengers on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority train was injured. The train traveled for about nine minutes — and through four stations — before MBTA personnel were able to stop it by cutting power to the electrified third rail.
Secretary of Transportation Stephanie Pollack said Thursday that before the train left the Braintree station, the operator got off the train to execute a procedure that allows it to travel if there is a signal problem.
Pollack said an investigation is under way to determine if the driver failed to properly secured brakes before exiting the train.
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A Red Line train carrying passengers left Braintree Station without an operator Thursday morning and made it as far as North Quincy Station before the MBTA managed to shut it down
Describing it as a “serious incident,” the MBTA reported around 9:30 a.m. Thursday that at 6:08 a.m., the train left Braintree toward Alewife, made no station stops and was finally stopped when the third-rail was depowered. Live personnel then took over the train and drove it to the JFK-UMass stop in Dorchester, where passengers were let off.
The T is investigating an “initial report that a safety device within the train’s cab may have been tampered with,” the agency said in a statement. Witnesses and the train’s assigned operator are being interviewed.
“This train was tampered with, and it was tampered with by someone who knows what he was doing,” Gov. Charlie Baker said during an interview on Boston Herald Radio shortly after news of the incident was made public.
Baker described the runaway train as “an isolated incident, a tampered train, tampered by someone,” and vowed to “get to the bottom of it.”
“Governor Baker is grateful no passengers were injured in this troubling incident and will be monitoring the investigation closely,” Baker’s press secretary, Lizzy Guyton, said in a statement.
The MBTA reports that no passengers were injured and the train did not stop at the four stations between Braintree and North Quincy.
“Passenger safety is the highest priority for the MBTA and this highly troubling incident is under investigation by Transit Police detectives,” MBTA General Manager Frank DePaola said in a statement.
Material from the State House News Service was used in this report.
