What Went Wrong With The MBTA Commuter Rail
BOSTON (CBS) -- Riders were pleased to hear the sweet sound of Commuter Rail trains running at South Station on Friday after a commuting nightmare the day before.
"Today was a heck of a lot smoother, so we're happy for it," said one rider.
Now the search for what went wrong has Amtrak's Northeast operations superintendent chalking it up to a computer glitch.
The hardware and software that controls the signals and switches in the grid, know as "The Tower One Interlock," failed to work properly on Thursday, leaving passengers frustrated and stranded for lengthy periods of time.
"We lost all visuals, all control...to move equipment," says the superintendent.
Amtrak engineers are still getting at the root cause, and working on a better backup system.
Bill Mezzner from Tufts University, a local railroad engineering expert, says the control center has been in place for more than 20 years.
On Skype, former Federal Railroad Administration official Steve Ditmeyer told WBZ redundancies should have been in place.
"The system would detect a fault, as it's supposed to go," he said.
The system has been in place for more than 35 years and is due for an upgrade, Ditmeyer says.
