My major T annoyance is that so many of the trains have a broken or perhaps just not correctly used announcement system, so that you can hear that the driver is announcing a stop but you can't make out what he is saying. I wish they would just keep the automatic announcement system in good repair, or instruct the drivers how to use it correctly. Since being sued a few years back, the MBTA has gotten better about keeping the elevators and escalators in good repair, but lately a lot of the announcement systems often seem to be broken.
Indeed. It's no consolation, but I remember not being able to understand the Red Line driver's announcements when I was a wee rider in 1965. I think drivers get a course in Mumbletalk along with their car control lever.
What is really annoying is that the drivers always make sure to be really clear and coherent about the JFK stop on the redline, because any white people from Braintree completely *freak* if they accidentally end up going to Dorchester. Since the JFK stop always gets announced loud and clear, it just makes it more obvious that the rest of the stops are less clearly announced due to driver laziness. There is one driver on the redline train who is very funny and seems to be having fun occasionally varying his announcements. One evening when, for some reason, there was no Braintree train but only Ashmont trains and Braintree folks were being shuttled from JFK, this driver kept announcing endlessly that "This is an Ashmont *AND* a Braintree train!" (did I mention that Braintree folks absolutely FREAK OUT if they accidentally end up on an Ashmont train?).
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