Transit union chief Thomas Murray, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 2054 rips T’s upper management

Transit union chief Thomas Murray, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 2054 rips T’s upper management
Transit union chief rips T’s upper management
http://www.bostonherald.com/business/business_markets/2015/03/transit_un...

Gerald C. Francis.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015
By:
Marie Szaniszlo

A transit union boss yesterday blasted the MBTA and its commuter rail operator, Keolis, for “paralysis at the upper-management level” that he said contributed to this winter’s breakdown of the system.

“Nobody knew what the hell was going on,” Thomas Murray, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 2054, testified before the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation. “... What we saw was a paralysis at the upper-management level. Everyone was afraid to make a move.”

Murray also blamed the MBTA for buying “wrecks on wheels” and for failing to expand maintenance facilities as the system grew over the years.

“This stretches the present mechanical facilities to their limit,” he said. “The commuter rail fleet 
operates in a region where harsh winters are the norm, not the exception.”

When Keolis took over operation of the commuter rail system last July, General Manager Gerald C. Francis said it inherited a train fleet that was “old and facing serious maintenance issues” that made it ill-equipped to handle the 594 million cubic feet of snow that was eventually removed from tracks and track infrastructure.

“At one point,” he said, “we had over 100 people clearing snow day and night” — a number that Rep. Timothy R. Madden (D-Nantucket) said he considered low.

But Francis provided no specifics in terms of how Keolis planned to prevent another system breakdown next winter, other than 40 new locomotives the company expects to receive over the next year and the possible purchase of more snow-removal equipment.