"It's Shocking": Transportation engineer says Green Line rail errors is an unbelievable mistake
BOSTON – Green Line Extension riders are beginning to learn the news that much of the brand new line – which has been open for just under a year – is defective.
"That's really upsetting," one Tufts student told WBZ while waiting for the train at Tufts Station.
On Thursday, MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng revealed that the majority of the rails that line the tracks on the extension were built too close together. Not only that, MBTA leadership knew of the defect as the tracks were being built, and – rather than correct it – continued the project and allowed the extension to reopen with known defective tracks.
The MBTA confirmed Friday that two employees with senior roles on the project are no longer employed at the MBTA.
A review from April 2021, and internal employee emails from 2022 obtained by WBZ-TV show MBTA employees exchanging concerns about the incorrectly laid tracks. "We would need to apply 10 mph speed restrictions unless they are corrected," an email from December 2022 reads.
"It's shocking," said Carl Berkowitz, a transportation engineer who reviewed the findings with WBZ. "We have so many ways to check and balance the measurement of the gauge and to develop track with narrow gauge is insane. I've never heard of it."
In fact, it is universal in all of North America that train tracks are separated by rails that are 4 feet, 8 and a half inches apart, Berkowitz said. "We still lay the track the same way we did in the 1800s," he said. "Everybody who's ever been trained in railroad engineering in any aspect knows that the gauge is 4 feet 8 and a half inches. It's like ingrained in your brain," he explained.
However, the rails here are too narrow by about one eighth of an inch. "If you make it too wide, then what happens to the wheels? They fall off the track, right?" Berkowtiz explained. "If you make it too narrow, what happens to the wheels? There's no place for the wheel to go. So, it goes on top of the track."
That is why the Green Line Extension has had mandatory speed restrictions, he says, "because the faster you go, the like more likelihood is that the wheels will get off the track."
The MBTA has not yet announced a plan for how and when the rails will be corrected.