T passengers decide it's end of the line
Climb off train that was stranded on Longfellow
Overheated Red Line passengers took matters into their own hands yesterday, pushing open doors on a subway train stopped on the Longfellow Bridge and clambering down to the street to walk into Boston, an MBTA spokesman and an eyewitness said.
The impromptu - and unauthorized - evacuation happened after a smoky trash fire at the Park Street station led Boston firefighters to request a power shutdown between Harvard and Broadway stations. Power was off for about 50 minutes, said MBTA spokesman Joseph Pesaturo.
While the Park Street station was evacuated and firefighters dealt with the fire, some passengers on the six-car inbound train on the bridge used emergency handles to open doors, Pesaturo said.
Citing an MBTA official who was on the scene, Pesaturo estimated that more than 200 passengers left the train, with most walking into Boston on Cambridge Street.
At the point where the train was stopped, the passengers could simply climb down from the open doors and over a chest-high fence to the street.
Casey Cortes, a 16-year-old Cambridge resident who was walking home over the bridge, snapped some photographs of the scene.
"A few people would climb down, climb over the fence, and cross the street," she said. "They all seemed calm. No one was upset or anything. . . . They would help each other."
She said drivers were forced to slow down and sometimes stop as passengers crossed the street to reach the sidewalk that runs along the outside edge of the bridge.
The incident occurred shortly after 5 p.m. The temperature outside was about 75 degrees at the time, according to the National Weather Service.
Pesaturo said no one was hurt. He said the train still had a large number of passengers when it resumed its journey. 