Red Liners fed up with delays

Red Line riders, halted during Monday afternoon rush hour after reports of smoke at Broadway station, told the Herald they’re sick of and frustrated with the constant MBTA delays.

Standing outside the Braintree station after a sluggish ride home, Victor Pachas said his commute to Brockton keeps getting longer.

“It just wasn’t moving,” Pachas, 38, said of the delays Monday. “The T has always been pretty bad, but it almost seems worse now with all these breakdowns happening.”

The delays of up to 20 minutes were because of a train with a mechanical problem, according to the MBTA. Fans cleared the smoke at Broadway.

The Red Line issues on Monday came after the MBTA announced the cause of the June Red Line derailment: The buildup of “a grease” on an exposed piece of the undercarriage caused electricity to arc, eventually leading to a broken axle.

“It’s definitely a concern,” said Jose Cruz, 25, of Braintree. “Safety is now always in the back of your mind, whether it’ll happen again.”

Cruz moved to the area in June, when the derailment happened outside the JFK/UMass station.

“There’s been some real bad days,” he said. “You unfortunately expect this from state government.”

Robin Cao, 29, of Braintree said the Red Line has been “kind of terrible” since the derailment.

“It (safety) concerns me a bit, but I’m not very nervous about it,” Cao said. “I just want it to get back to normal.”

Users on Twitter blasted the T for Monday’s delays, with one person writing, “Truly amazing how often smoke and flames are a part of the MBTA experience. Well done!”

Another person wrote about the Red Line rush hour delay, “How many train engines need to burn up before there’s some damn accountability at the @mbta, @MassGovernor? How many commuters must be impacted? How many business must it affect? What’s the threshold? Seems to me like we’re there now.”