A Brand New Orange Line Train Did a Whoops and Derailed
Something went wrong at the Wellington Rail Yard.
Photo by Lisa Weidenfeld
Ah, shit.
Guessing this is not exactly the rollout the MBTA was was expecting for its spiffy new Orange Line trains. In yet another setback for the admittedly very slick and cool and fun-to-ride additions to the aging subway system, there appears to have been yet another big whoops this week.
It seems that something went wrong at the Wellington Rail Yard Monday afternoon, when one of the sets of train cars slipped off the tracks while slowly rolling through the Medford site after spending the morning in service. Boston 25, which broke the news, reports the last of six cars came off the rail as it rolled over a switch.
No one was riding on the train at the time of the incident, T officials say, and the new trains do not appear to have been damaged.
How it happened remains under investigation, but it’s possible the problem was not with the train, but with the track switch it rolled across. Boston 25 reports the switch is due to be replaced.
At the same time, this was not the first snafu with the new trains, which had to be taken out of service for several days when a design mishap involving its doors caused one of them to pop open on a moving train with passengers aboard. No one was injured, and the T says it has identified the cause of the malfunction and resolved the issue with “a new, heavy duty design” for the doors.
Just goes to show you that the highly anticipated brand new trains alone won’t solve the city’s myriad transit woes, I guess.
