When I commuted regularly on the MBTA, it was fairly horrible but much better driving. (That was in the early to mid 1970's! But things haven't changed much: the "new" equipment is still 30 years old and was bought used, but they do run many more lines with more frequent service and for longer periods each day. Used to be the last train left Boston about 7:30 PM. They now run to midnight.)
One time my train unaccountably stopped just short of Canton Junction. The crew said they had no idea what was going on and got off and were wandering around looking at things. Finally the conductor got back on and announced they thought they had run out of fuel. But there was no fuel gauge (or at least not a working one), so they weren't sure. After another hour, an engine arrived and pushed us the rest of the way. Fortunately, this was on a quiet summer Saturday afternoon and there wasn't much traffic for us to obstruct. Long before the line was electrified and before Amtrak NEC or Acellas were using the same line.
They still use diesels despite the fact the line was electrified 30 years ago, but they recently borrowed a couple of electric locos from Amtrak to "conduct tests" sometime this spring, maybe. I suppose they are waiting for Amtrak to buy a bunch of new electric locomotives and sell the current ones to other commuter railroads, so those railroads can sell their really old locomotives to the T.
Meanwhile, in the news today, they are planning to build a 700' office/condo tower in the middle of South Station, which requires closing 70% of the concourse and 50% of the access doors to the platforms for 5 to 6 years during construction. Meanwhile installing fare gates which are guaranteed to cause further bottlenecks.
The reason for the fare gates is because the trains are so crowded the crews can't get through the cars to scan all the tickets or passes before the train reaches its destination, so they have no idea how many people aren't paying their fares. (My guess is actually not that many since most of the commuters use monthly passes and have paid for the trip even if it hasn't been recorded.) Of course, the commuter rail passes are not compatible with the T's Charlie Card system used on the subways and buses. And they have waved their hands about making the gates accept Amtrak tickets, but who knows? They will have to have special gates and personnel to allow through wheelchairs and people with a lot of luggage, and porters and train servicing people with big carts full of luggage and food and supplies. My guess is whenever there are long lines (like every day during rush hour), they will just open the special wide gates and wave everyone through, defeating the whole purpose.
They claim this will only add 5-10 minutes to an average commute. Every day. Five days a week, 52 weeks per year. 87 hours, or over two work-weeks per year. Which is over $5000 per passenger at minimum wage for each and every passenger. And remember they always underestimate the inconvenience factor of any project like this. Because the real estate developers aren't paying the $5000, the customers are.
What they really need to do is increase the size, frequency and number of trains, but there aren't enough tracks. Next door, there is a very large surplus Post Office facility that they have been negotiation to acquire since the 1980's, but no one knows if that is ever going to happen.
Meanwhile, there is major construction going on at the other two main Boston stations, Back Bay and North Station. They are about to start a huge project that will take at least twenty years, to replace an elevated section of the Mass Turnpike (I-90) that runs next to/on top of the Framingham/Worcester/LSL branch. (This is the fastest growing branch of the commuter rail system.) The highway construction will involve re-aligning the train tracks through an abandoned rail yard, building the new highway through the existing ROW, building a new station (West Station) in the same location, and a lot of other construction. The bad part, from a rail standpoint, is they are planning to reduce the line to a single track for about 5 years. Will they electrify the line while all this is happening (or put up the catenary, even if they don't replace the equipment yet)? No sign of it.
Not to mention all the bad service, mechanical breakdowns, weather problems, ancient rolling stock, all made worse by the increased ridership due to Boston having the worst traffic in the country.
see: https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2020/02/03/south-station-tower-construction, https://whdh.com/news/gridlock-expected-at-south-station-due-to-construction/ and
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/02...outh-station-riders-brace-serious-disruption/
