Farewell Red Line

No more curry fart smells
No more pink bags full of putrefying fish and rotten produce
No more unwanted physical contact from creeps
No more homeless people telling me that they want to kill me
No more drunks asking me why I stole their money
No more poop logs on the floor or on the seats
No more scary Wollaston locals with long, crusty, pointy fingernails
No more snakes named Penelope slithering around for months
No more hoards of teenagers cussing and telling each other various tales regarding each other's mother
No more sticky floors
No more obsessing that my hair had absorbed the urine, smoke, curry fart and fish smells that fellow riders contributed to the ride
No more double wide strollers running over my feet
No more backpacks or unnecessarily huge and pointy handbags digging into my back/sides
No more trains that are too crowded to fit on
No more twice-daily anxiety wondering on a scale of 1-10 how horrendous my commute will be
No more stepping on sucked-dry ribs and chicken carcass pieces in the bowels of the MBTA
No more getting startled by rats and mice with no tails scurrying around the tracks whilst waiting for the next Braintree train
No more nausea from slow trains/trains that stop and start and stop and start and chug along the tipped tracks
No more loud cell phone talkers -- in any language -- screaming in my ear
No more getting trampled by rude/weird Quincy locals trying to be the first on the train
No more fighting back tears while getting touched from every angle of my body by all parts of other people's bodies
No more running home to shower a la "The Crying Game" every day to rid my body of the sweat, germs and other people's gross skin contact

Yes, my loyal readers, I have officially stopped taking the red line to work every day.  I Great White Flighted to the suburban oasis that is the South Shore, and now have the pleasure of taking the Commuter Rail every day. 

I rode the Red Line every work day for over five years.  Naysayers didn't think I could last a year on the Red Line since I hate germs and unwanted physical contact from gross people who smell like fried fish diarrhea.  It's a big change leaving the city but I can safely say after just over one week on the Commuter Rail that I will not miss the Red Line.  Since I work in the city I am sure that an occasion will come where I need to take the Red Line, so I will keep this blog live and reflect on my random -- and hopefully infrequent -- trips on all of the nasty MBTA subway lines.

Thank you so much for reading my blog!  I hope my misery entertained you.

My last Thursday on the Red Line!! Praise!

Was just on the phone with my favorite girlfriend, Erica, and realized that today is my last Thursday of commuting on the Red Line!

My husband and I are finally moving out of wretched Quincy, and in just over one week I will be on the glorious commuter rail.  We'll just have to wait and see if ihatetheredline.blogspot.com turns into ihatethecommuterrail.blogspot.com.  Hopefully not.  Please god, please.

That was really nice, thank you.

Talk about an adventure -- this morning's commute into South Station on the red line was HORRENDOUS. It started out with getting to Wollaston right as "The next red line train to Alewife is now approaching." I thought, "excellent timing, me!" and got right on to only a semi-packed train.

We had the typical nonsensical delays at JFK, then rolled into Andrew and had to hang out there for a few minutes. I could vaguely hear the conductor informing us of something but the speakers in the train are of such crap quality that I couldn't understand what she was saying.

Finally we get to Broadway and miraculously the speakers in the train were fixed and on max volume. We were first informed that there was an issue at Downtown, and that we were waiting for the ok from "Central Control" to keep moving. 5 minutes pass with numerous, way-too-loud announcements about how we were standing by and there was no estimate for how long we'd be stuck there. Most of my fellow passengers were cool as cucumbers since we are all pretty used to never having an incident-free commute, but I did chuckle when I heard some lady start going nuts and huffing, "Jesus Christ!"


Maybe 10 minutes passed, and we were told that OUR train was coming out of service. "No passengers, no passengers," we heard, and everyone of us on that now packed train de-boarded. Once we were off the train we were told within a few minutes that service had been suspended. No more trains!! What the hell? This was a first for me, but I was a little happy to be able to walk out of the dirty pit that is Broadway Station and up to the fresh air. The masses of thousands of disgruntled red line riders went upstairs to, of course, no direction as to what we should do. Some people walked, others took taxis, and many more of us just stood there waiting for a bus. I managed to get on the 3rd bus. Here is a picture of me on my second ever Boston bus (along with 200 other people). Pardon the expression on my face but I was squished by a man who had the strongest, most offensive curry odor I'd smelled in a long time.


So it turned out that there was a fire on the tracks at downtown crossing, and I arrived at work 40 minutes late thanks to the red line and the nasty people who litter on the tracks and start fires. I can't remember the last time that there were no issues on my red line commute for more than 2 consecutive days. It is ALWAYS HORRIBLE!!!!

Claws, vomit and nightmares

Ever notice the amount of grown men with long finger nails taking the red line into/out of Quincy? This morning I had the displeasure of standing in front of a seated man who had the crustiest, most yellow, long, pointy fingernails I'd seen in quite some time. Take a look and you will throw up in your mouth a little just like I did:

Not only were this man's hands nauseating to look at, but at one point he started tapping his crusty claws, one at a time in quick succession against the metal pole, creating the most irritating and vomit-inducing noise I'd experienced in a long time. I gave him the look of death and scurried away in disgust/terror as he proceeded to make his claw/pole music, which sounded just so beautiful when combined with his hacking, wet cigarette cough.

I'm definitely going to have nightmares about those claws tonight. Usually they only have one or two long pinky or thumb nails, but this guy had 10 fingers in need of a visit with a hacksaw and anti-fungal treatment. At least he didn't pick his nose with them, as I all too often witness on the red line.

Video! Coldest commute day and biggest crowds.

What the F, MBTA. I'm on to you... on Tuesday you announce potential fare hikes. This gets people upset and gets them thinking, "Hey, I don't need the damn T if they're going to be so expensive." Then, in an obviously calculated attempt to show people how much we need the T to run properly, the frackin red line has disabled trains and ridiculous delays on the coldest commute of the 2011-2012 winter season.

I got to Wollaston and noticed a lot of people waiting downstairs. I thought, "oh it must be reeaaallly cold and windy up on the platform. I'm going to get a good spot and let those suckers rush up the stairs when that 8:35am train rolls in!" Silly, naive, me. I get to the top of the stairs and there must have been thousands of people standing there. There was also a train, packed to maximum capacity, just sitting there. People were desperately trying to squeeze on, as though this train was the last one to heaven and everyone else was destined to eternity in hell. What a pathetic display of desperation and inconsiderate behavior. Step back and let that damn train move, people! Jesus. Check out my VIDEO of the scene here.

So I wait, and wait, and wait, and there are several announcements on the loud speaker about a disabled train at Wollaston. The damn thing had moved so let's freshen up the announcement and be accurate, MBTA robot spokesman.

Miraculously, after about 20 minutes of standing in the 13 degree and windy weather at the top of the open Wollaston platform, a train pulls up and I get on! The pack of people pushing their way on to the train was disgusting, and I did intentionally kick the shin of man behind me who was pushing me.

Thank you Santa for less-crowded trains

As slow as the train has been lately, I do appreciate that many people seem to be taking some extra time off around the holidays, so the trains haven't been as crowded as normal. I found this picture online and it made me think of the red line at its worst...

Click here for photo credits

Sloooooow movin'

Anyone else feel like the train has been slower than it needs to be on a daily basis recently? It should take about 15 minutes to get from Wollaston to South Station in the morning, but lately it's been taking 20+ minutes due to slow moving and lots of annoying stops that make people fall over.

C'mon, Red Line! Where is your Christmas spirit? GET MOVING!!