The Daily Report

Happy New Year, and say hi to the first Daily Report of 2010, yay. The day started out as most do, with a morning ride on the Orange Line from Oak Grove to Boston. Fortunately, the OL was fine this morning, and on time, though I was running a little late. As you will see shortly, the transit gods certainly overlooked the OL today, leading to clear conditions and good service, for the (T). This afternoon's Green Line ride was also on time, though there were a few points of note. First, I took a Lechmere train today, as there were no trains in the tunnel, and the train was remarkably uncrowded for a Huntington Ave Branch train at that hour. Weird. Additionally, the several lights of a weird lower room in the tunnel, quite close to Boylston past 3417, were on again, which is rather unusual, though by no means unheard of. Boylston itself was also a picture of oddities, as the wall track on the outbound(westbound) side was filled with work equipment, including a large white and yellow machine of unknown type or number, the green wire car often found there, and most importantly, the MOW Boeing LRV 3453, the green one with some original plug doors. It has inexplicably been parked there intermittently for a while, maybe the Reservoir cold was taking its toll on the old Boeing. Cool. The Brattle Loop was again parked full of trains, following MBTA logic which does not allow anyone to think that if they use the loop on FirstNight, maybe it would be useful on Every Night. Figures. Anyway, my second OL train was on time at NoSta and had plenty of seats, which of course is because the transit gods were today focused on the Blue Line. The Blue had the major problem of the day, as a 'disabled train' here meaning one stuck at Maverick without power, held up the line for two-plus hours, leading to bustitution between GC and Airport, while the passengers were stuck in the tunnel on the train for around two hours. As MBTA delays go that is kinda a bad one, especially for the usually-good Blue Line, which only infrequently appears on the T-Alerts page, especially compared to the Red. Evidently the transit gods saw fit to mess up the Blue today to try and even the balance a little, I just hope they keep away from the Green tomorrow. In other news, the Red Line had some minor problems, and the Commuter Rail isn't doing all that great today, but all in all, if the Blue Line didn't get you, the (T) was relatively OK today. The Daily Report is now officially back from its holiday hiatus, and will be back tomorrow and beyond.

And so it goes, another day riding forever 'neath the streets of boston.