BOSTON — For the second time in less than a week, a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority commuter train has operated with a door open.
The second incident happened Thursday evening on a Kingston-bound train departing Boston’s South Station. WHDH-TV quotes a passenger who took the video, Mary-Jean Kelly, as saying she left the train at Quincy Center [the second stop after leaving South Station] “and the door was open the entire time from South Station to Quincy Center.”
The station quoted a source as saying a preliminary investigation indicated a passenger had opened the door.
On Tuesday, a similar incident occurred on a train on the Middlesborough-Lakeville line. [See “MBTA commuter train opens with door opened on packed coach,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 13, 2019.]
Similar incident happened on Metro-North a few years back. Door stuck open on a morning rush-hour MU train inbound to Grand Central. (High level platforms, no vestibules, doors open directly to passenger area). Cell phone video appears on the morning news, and the reporter says, “So why didn’t somebody tell the conductor? Because if they did, they’d have to stop the train until they could fix it, and then EVERYBODY’s late for work!”
I wonder how much they would have complained if they stopped the train and unloaded everyone and took the train out of service. Next did the door “brake” because a passenger had forced it open.
So did Ms. Kelly report the open door to the train crew? Or was she too busy taking the video? South Station to intermediate stop to Quincy Center is a long enough time to send someone for a train crew while herself posting watch (from a safe distance over the vestibule. Or get off the train at the intermediate stop and holler for help.
Not everyone reacts the same way to a problem. But if she was wise enough the video the problems she should have known it was a problem.