Slight Delays on the P508

The p508 was running about 10 minutes late this morning. I received a T Alert while waiting on the platform at the Grafton stop that the train was going to be delayed 15-20 minutes. It arrived in Grafton at 7:15 AM (just 8 minutes off the scheduled time of 7:09 AM). Due to those schedule changes implemented last year (you know, where the MBTA built time into every schedule to deal with their poor performance) we were "only" 8 minutes late upon arrival at South Station, pulling in at 8:32 AM.

I noticed at article in the Metro this morning that touted improved on time performance stats for the commuter rail. I thought this part of the article was quite telling:

The month of March got off to a rocky start for commuter rail travel after yesterday’s storm dropped up to a foot of snow across the region. However, despite the weather hiccup, MBCR officials say on-time service has significantly improved after a dreadful December and January.

Schedule changes on lines north of Boston and the Fairmount line helped boost overall on time service to 87.8 percent in February, compared with 76.5 percent in January, according to the MBCR.

So, on time performance has improved, not really because the trains are on time, but because schedules were extended across most other commuter rail lines (this happened on the Worcester-Framingham line a year ago) instead of addressing the issues at hand like old equipment and signal issues, the MBTA/MBCR. I can't say I'm surprised though.