Make the damn thing run on time and nobody will care if it burns whale oil and exhausts powdered asbestos

The schedule change for conductors was last week and we've already discussed with the new conductor what kind of pizza we should order when we have our multi-hour "the switches are frozen and nothing can leave north station" delays this winter.

>Ofsevit steps off an MBTA commuter-rail train onto a platform, then turns and looks behind him. His train car has already emptied, but the rear cars haven’t. Instead of stepping quickly onto platforms, riders are stepping slowly and gingerly from the train to footstools, then to the ground.

This is pure BS. There are no footstools or anything like that at Waltham. If they wanted people to get off the train fast they'd let people exit at doors where there isn't a conductor or they'd use more conductors to staff more doors. This would also reduce conductor workload and let them eliminate all the ticket checkers at the stations.

>high-level platforms for every train car in each station to speed up entry and exit,

This requirement does not allow for partial implementation. Many towns are stuck maintaining grandfathered in stations because they don't have the money to do a full length, full height platform. If you want to save time open more doors for people to use. Of course a bunch of transit budget planners in Boston would rather tell the towns to build platforms rather than hire more bodies to open more doors because the towns are the ones who have to pay for the platforms.