UPDATE: MBTA Red Line service resumes — with delays — after track flooding
Shuttle buses are replacing subway service on a stretch of the MBTA’s Red Line after a water main issue near the Ashmont train station in Dorchester.
A spokesman for the Boston Water & Sewer Commission told reporters at the scene that the issue was not a water main break, but a pipe elbow that “let go.”
The disruption, which began Tuesday night and is extending into the morning commute Wednesday, comes as another stretch of the subway line is shut down for repairs. The water issue forced the MBTA to run shuttles between its JFK/UMass and Ashmont Stations. Shuttle buses will replace service between JFK/UMass and Braintree until Sept. 29.
The MBTA first alerted commuters to the water issue at around 6:45 p.m. Tuesday. Around 8 p.m., the transit agency blamed delays on “water from an external pipe near the station that entered the northbound track area at Ashmont.” Shuttle buses began replacing service minutes later.
Water entering the tunnel area at Ashmont created a potentially dangerous condition as it rose to meet the level of the electrified third rail, an MBTA spokesman said in an email.
As of around 5 a.m. Wednesday morning, shuttle buses were continuing to run between JFK/UMass and Ashmont “while the Power Department continues to work on issues related to last night’s water main break near Ashmont station.”
