MBTA Red Line Alert: 3 Hour Shutdown on Wednesday

This has been a challenging week for MBTA commuters – (oh, who are we kidding – it’s been a challenging decade!) with the Red Line derailment on Tuesday morning, it made the rush hour commute nightmarish. 

The MBTA announced a 3-hour partial shutdown of the Red Line – North Quincy and JFK/UMass stations – on Wednesday beginning at 11am as crews work on repairing damage to a signal system.

So once again shuttle buses will be in place between the stops.   (Insert eye roll here.)

Via Twitter the MBTA released the following statement:

So Red Line service has resumed after this yesterday’s derailment, but we know you’re wondering why we’re still delayed and what’s to come. Here’s we what we have so far…

During the derailment, the train struck multiple signal bungalows outside of JFK/UMass. These are the sheds that house the hardware that controls our signal system.

Without the signal system, trains must be given permission from our Operations Control Center to move from one station to the next, one train at a time. This also means we need people along the tracks to physically set the routes to direct trains.

This failure prevents clear communication to train tracking, GPS apps, and countdown clocks. To avoid inaccurate predictions, we’ve turned off the countdown clocks across the Red Line.

Looking ahead, bungalows will need to be rebuilt, new signals & cables installed, tracks repaired. At this time, we can’t say how long that will take.

For now, trains will continue to travel at slower speeds. We ask customers to allow extra time & use all available services.

We know this is a big ask. We sincerely appreciate all our riders’ understanding and patience while crews work around the clock to fix this. We promise to keep updating you as more info becomes available.

So there you have it.  Plan accordingly and happy travels.

MBTA – you need to do better!