Early Extra Train
This morning I had the opportunity to catch the early 7:19 train and it certainly seems a much better option than the 8:45 train. The train was waiting at the station and left exactly at 7:19.
The 7:19 is a extra train out of Framingham to handle the large number of early morning commuters that take the 506 train which leaves Worcester at 6:35.
The conductor announced that they left Framingham a bit early because the train behind it ( 506 from Worcester) was already full. He also advised passengers to not put any personal items on the seats because they expect the train to be packed. When we pulled into Back Bay, I did see some double seats that only had one passenger.
The train pulled into Back Bay around 8:26, leaving the ride to be more than an hour long to get into Boston. The train was late by about 10 minutes due to heavy ridership.
After I arrived at Back bay, I got a text message that my regular train, the 514 @ 8:45 was delayed due to "train traffic ahead." Basically the heavy rider ship slow down causes the delay for the later trains.
Keolis needs to fix the Worcester/Framingham schedule. Even if they don't add additional trains, they could at least put in more realistic times due to the large number of commuters. One solution would be making the 'extra' train a 7am train to minimize the train traffic delays.
Worcester/Framingham users will have to wait till next Monday to see any improvements to the schedule since the MBTA changed the schedule for "Service Recovery" on February 18th.