Thursday, January 7, 2010

Commuter Rail Schedule Changes and On Time Performance Statistics

Effective Monday, January 11, there will be schedule changes for the following commuter rail lines: Fairmont, Fitchburg, Greenbush, Haverhill, Middleborough/Lakeville and Plymouth/Kingston.

Updated schedules can be found at http://www.mbcr.net or you can pick up paper copies of the schedules at North Station, South Station and Back Bay Station.

Ah, these must be consistently late trains in terms of on-time performance, hence, let's make a schedule change! (Do I sound bitter?)

I will say that the MBCR website has been recently updated and there is a lot of new information on it ... which FINALLY includes On Time Performance statistics! No more searching out the posters in South Station. The November performance stats can be found here
http://www.mbcr.net/Report_Card/NovOTP.pdf.

Overall for November, trains were on time 83% of the time, down from 88% in October and 93% in September. On the Worcester line, on time performance in November was 89%, 84% in October and 89% in September, with YTD on time performance at 87%.

The best performing line continues to be Greenbush, with YTD on time performance at 95%. The worst performing line is Middleborough, with YTD on time performance at 82%. However, for the month of November, Middleborough only had 26% on time performance. That is completely unacceptable. If I rode the Middleborough line, I would be livid!

Also, MBCR now posts the reasons that on time performance was not reached:
  • November 2: Crossing Failure on Fitchburg line- 10 delays
  • November 3: Train 129 Mechanical problems- 11 delays
  • November 5: Train 442 fatality on Fitchburg line line- 12 delays
  • November 6: Broken rail at Beverly- 13 delays
  • November 7: Train 1703 fatality on Franklin line- 5 delays
  • November 9: Train 328 mechanical failure- 17 delays
  • November 13: Train 006 mechanical failure- 11 delays
  • November 24: Lowell line signal failure- 14 delays
  • November 28: Train 1165 fatality on Newburyport line- 1 cancelled train
  • Ongoing Speed restrictions on the Middleboro and Plymouth/Kingston Lines due to concrete tie deterioration causing delays.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Middleoboro Line was impacted by the mandatory speed restrictions which resulted from deteriorating concrete ties on that line. Those ties are now being replaced while mBTA figures out how ot get original contractor (from 1997) to pay for the work. These restrctions impact 30 trains per day.