It was not a great day on the Framingham/Worcester commuter rail line.

The morning commute started out poorly. I waited 20 minutes in the bitter cold for the 6:50 (P504) train to arrive. It was apparently late due to "switch problems" back in Worcester ("Switch problems" and "signal problems" are commuter rail code for "someone screwed something up" as far as I can tell.) The train that finally did arrive was a six car, single decker train. Since this train would now be carrying passengers from both the P504 and the P506 trains, it was immediately obvious that things would be getting pretty crowded.

Sure enough, the train was pretty much full by the time we got through Wellseley. I even did the right thing and offered my seat to an older woman standing nearby, but she turned me down. It was a very slow ride into Boston and we finally got there at about 8:30, 45 minutes late.

Not to be outdone, the evening train was late as well. We left South Station on time at 6:15, but moved very slowly though Newton (more "signal problems"). Then, as we got to West Natick, the conductor announced that a car was stuck on the track in Framingham and we were being stopped by the police until they moved the car out of the way. So we got about half way to Framingham station and sat there. For more than 20 minutes. Now, no one actually explained exactly what happened, but unless there was an accident (no evidence of that when we passed the intersection), there's no imaginable reason why it should take that long to push a car off the tracks.

So we got into Framingham about 7:30, around 40 minutes late. I spent nearly 1.5 hours on the train or waiting for the train more than I would in a normal day. Thank goodness I had my iPod, a book and my phone.

I'm hoping I used up my quota of travel delays for the week. I want to be hitting the wild blue yonder right on time on Wednesday afternoon!