(The following story by Vivian Ho appeared on the Boston Globe website on October 1, 2010.)
BOSTON — Thousands of Amtrak and commuter rail passengers experienced delays and cancellations for trains heading into and out of Boston yesterday after strong winds knocked a tree branch onto power lines in Hyde Park during rush hour, according to Amtrak and Massachusetts Bay Commuter Rail officials.
Twelve Acela and northeast regional Amtrak trains experienced delays or cancellations after the branch fell into the power lines above the rails at about 4:30 p.m. yesterday, said Cliff Cole, a spokesman for Amtrak.
Forty-four commuter rail trains were delayed 20 to 40 minutes, with the longest wait lasting just over an hour, said Scott Farmelant, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Rail.
Service for three commuter rail trains was canceled.
When the branch came down on the overhead wires powering the trains, several of the wires snapped and power was lost, causing some of the tracks to be deenergized, Cole said.
The railroads east of Route 128 near Hyde Park were without power late last night, cutting off trains coming into and leaving Boston.
A limited number of regional Amtrak trains running by diesel power remained in operation last night, Cole said. Because Acela trains are high speed and dependent on electricity, they were unable to operate out of South Station, and were only able to go as far as Providence for service out of New York City, he said.
The Fairmount, Franklin, and Providence and Stoughton commuter rail lines were directly affected by the power outage in the Hyde Park area, Farmelant said. The problems caused cascading delays in the other eight commuter rail lines, he said.
Cole and Farmelant said thousands of Amtrak and commuter rail passengers were affected.
“When you have an incident that happens in the middle of a rush hour, you can expect that thousands of passengers are impacted,’’ Cole said.
As crews worked all night, Cole said they were concerned about the morning rush.
“The fortunate part is that we usually don’t have that many trains running overnight from Boston to New York,’’ Cole said. “It’s the morning commute that we’re looking at, making sure we have enough power in the tracks so we can have a somewhat normal rush hour tomorrow.’’