Leaves. It Was Leaves. Two Hours in the Dark on the Providence Line, and the Villain Was Autumn

Tuesday night a Providence Line train sat dead outside Ruggles for close to two hours. No lights, no air. Rider Dan Brogan told NBC10 people finally climbed off "in the middle of a dark tunnel" and walked the rails to the station. Then they waited another hour and a half with "no clear messaging, communication, no overhead announcements."

The cause, per the T: fallen leaves, which leave a slippery film so trains can't brake or grip. GM Phillip Eng says the MBTA runs wash trains and laser trains to clean the rails and that "every fall season is a little bit different."

Fine. Leaves fall every year in New England. That's not news. What's news is a train full of people walking a tunnel and then standing on a staircase with zero announcements. You can't laser-train your way out of not picking up a microphone.

Best detail: Brogan had just come from a MassDOT conference about improving rail reliability. You can't write that.

Dez's take: The leaves aren't the scandal. The silence is. Next morning the Red Line had a dead train at Central and delays ran from 7:12 to 9:27. Fall's got about a month left.

What we still don't know: whether anyone at the T reviews how riders were informed, or if this just goes in the leaf file.