March 30, 2004
Commuter Rail Conundrum
Approximately one week ago I noticed that the trash can on the Franklin/Forge Park commuter rail was blocked off. The sign on it read "Temporarily out of Service" in nice, big letters. Since I generally only ride in one car at a time, the sign didn't raise any red flags for me. I just assumed it was broken.
The next morning the sign was still there. My pattern for riding the train is very consistent, so this was likely the exact same car as the day before. But, what kind of repair could take more than a day? And since when do garbage cans break?
Friday afternoon I left work early and hit the station in time to grab the 4:45 train. Again, garbage can marked off. Then yesterday I took a later train and it was there again.
This morning I decided to check it out. Instead of sitting down right away I walked through a few cars. Each car has a garbage can in each end. ALL of them were blocked.
I mentioned this to Tara when I got home tonight. The cunning lady that she is, she immediately said "Oh, yeah. That's what they do when there are bomb scares. And don't forget the train bombing in Spain a few weeks ago."
The bombings in Spain happened on a commuter train, which were hidden in garbage cans. Holy cow!
After some searching I was able to find this: MBTA Riders Can Clean Up On Terrorism. They reference a "pamphlet" that is being handed out to riders. I haven't seen one. Also, when searching on Google, this subject listed on 4 hits in the best result. Is it too soon after this was implemented to show up? (Yet another reason why blogs are more powerful than search engines)
Has anyone else seen this happening on their trains? Let me know.