Track issues on Braintree branch?
Take this with all the grains of unofficial salt!
Just now I boarded at Wollaston. I’d noticed there were blue hat vest MBTA employees (blue hat = maintenance of way aka MOW aka Track dept) on either end of the platform (not strange, they’ve been walking the track during revenue service for weeks now, when I asked the track laborer said they were shoring up for World Cup) - but usually I don’t see them on both ends AND the train stopping for several minutes for the motorperson to be clearly talking to the track laborer for an extended period. Then we rode super slow like 5-10mph all the way until Quincy Center. Normal from Quincy to Braintree.
Why am I assuming the blue hat gentleman is a “track laborer” ? Track walkers (technically “System Repairers” ) walk track at night during non revenue hours. Yellow hats are signals, red hats are power, green hats are facilities. When I was a contractor they issued me a white helmet with a T logo but all the permanent E&M employees are issued these color coded helmets and if you look closely their non-revenue vehicles are now color coded with pill-shaped labels saying which E&M dept too.