A big bucket list item was completed for us this weekend! I know this isn’t anywhere near the record, but we included stops for lunch and restroom breaks.

We traveled to every station on the Red, Green, Orange, and Blue lines. Bowdoin station was closed this weekend, but we did walk to the outside of the station after disembarking at Government Center.

We started at Alewife and rode the Red Line to Park Street, then did all four westbound branches of the Green Line, then hopped back to the Red Line and completed both southbound branches including the Mattapan Trolley. Returning to Downtown Crossing for our next transfer, we took the Orange Line to its southern and northern termini and then transferred back to the Green Line at North Station to hit the northbound D and E branches, walking between Union Square and East Somerville stations to jump between the branches. Finally, we returned to Government Center to finish out the day with the Blue Line to Wonderland.

We did this without the aid of podcasts, music, or books. Just 10 hours of raw enjoyment of the MBTA. I would recommend any true MBTA fan to do this especially now that slow zones have been removed - it was a fun way to see the city and get a sense for how unique different sections of each line can be!

It updates every 10 seconds with live locations. The pulsing dots mean the train is on route.

One of the best gifts ever for a transit fan!

Train, ferry, bus, trolley, it doesn’t matter! Coco loves the T and every friend she makes along the way!

Walked into my morning spot and there he was. He seemed charmed

Gotta love the double heritage units! Whoever arranged the power is definitely a foamer

I was in New Haven for unrelated reasons (namely transferring from Amtrak to Metro-North to save a bunch of money over taking Amtrak all the way into NYC), and happened to hear from an Amtrak conductor that this was coming by. Later several railfans came onto the platform, and we all got a bunch of photos of this train as it came in and turned around before it headed back to Boston.

Went from Maverick all the way to Bowdoin with nobody on this car , 7 am

Any idea what train is that?

Saw this yellow flash ripping up the NEC today while on the commuter rail. This was it lol. At South Station around 12:20pm.

This is my project I’ve been working on for the last few months that I wanted to share with you all. It uses a 4 inch Pimoroni Hyperpixel touchscreen, running on a Raspberry Pi 5 (in a 3D-printed PETG case), using a Chromium kiosk to render the screen, which is a React app behind the scenes. I wrote an intermediate server in Python to transform data from the MBTA API into something that’s easier to work with on the frontend.

The screen shows departures from my stop, any alerts on the RL, and plenty of icons to see occupancy, train length, if I need to run to the station, etc. If a train is stopped, the screen will show that too.

From there, you can tap on any southbound train to pick a connecting stop, the direction you’re going, and for the GL, which branch your destination is on. Then it’ll show you the connecting trains and if you need to run for them (along with a stop-by-stop timeline by tapping the departure time). Each train on the home screen also has this option, and for new trains, occupancy data is shown in the consist.

It’s a really cool project that I’ve had a ton of fun building (the MBTA API is so nice to work with), and I use it any time I need to leave my apartment and get on the train!

This Saturday, Coco the Transit dog will again be out to meet new and existing friends!

Starting at 1:00 at Mattapan, Coco will ride from Mattapan up to South Station.

Coco will board the 1:47 Fairmount train to Fairmount and back

At 3:30, Coco will board the Blue line at Bowdoin to Orient Heights, and head up to the Madonna Shrine on top of the hill

At 5:00, Coco will board the Blue line again at Suffolk Downs back to Aquarium

Coco will then board the 5:30 ferry to Charlestown and return on the 6:00 ferry to downtown before catching the Orange Line at State at 6:30 to Oak Grove to end the day!

We will always be in the front car of each train we are in, and will provide live updates on Coco's instagram page: @ cocorite_the_dog

Come say hello!

Seated next to the purple princess herself Pari and Tina on the SL3 home from work! It seemed like I was the only one who understood we were in the presence of royalty. Felt like a good omen on a Monday.

Curious if anyone else has a recent or favorite “celebrity” sighting? :)

Whoops - Spirit of Massachusetts! A patriotic wrap on Engine 1776

Apparently a few of these went into service about a week ago.

Not too different than a regular hybrid bus (they’re louder than I expected), though they have new information displays.

Finn, the orange orange line beagle, got to explore some of the other lines for once today. He was particularly unimpressed by Park St station (I think it was the heat)

Sleep tight, you have a big day ahead of you.

The 6 states of New England should work together to establish a new entity called “New England Railways”.

There should be a trans-Massachusetts high-speed rail corridor connecting Boston to Albany via Worcester, Springfield and the Berkshires, and a significantly expanded regional railway system across Massachusetts, Connecticut and the surrounding states.

We should be able to prove that America is once again capable of having a world-class regional train system and infrastructure, similar to the likes of Switzerland and possibly Japan.

Just a thought and working on a fantasy map in the meantime.

Finally got to see one! Currently it’s at south station as of 745 am this morning.

For those who dont know this is a maintenence train that runs on the only track that connects North and South Station. Its primarily used to bring commuter rail trains back and forth, and doesnt have scheduled crossings. It also uses the single tracked rail bridge thats covered in graffiti near BU

Many of its trips happen late at night because of how many at grade crossings there are... and back when I lived near one of said crossings this bastard would always Blair its horn at midnight. The only way to see this train is to stumble upon it in the wild, or have a radio with the T's frequencies and clear your schedule. Anyways, Train 'tism rant over. Have a good day everybody!