The one day I took the red line home....

Red Line trains experienced significant rush hour delays on Monday, the worst weather-related incident in what has been a tough 72 hours for the storm-bedeviled MBTA

"We understand that some people would be frustrated when these situations occur, but we can promise them that MBTA crews are working very hard in situations like this," said Joe Pesaturo, an MBTA spokesman. "We had one storm after another."

The problem began at 4:45 p.m., when a northbound train at Charles Street was shut down under “emergency mode” after a tripping device at the front of the train detected an unknown problem on the track, Pesaturo said.

The train powered down, triggering a series of delays that would eventually disrupt service in both directions for hours.

Crews hunted for the problem. They didn't realize until 6:10 p.m. -- and a second train had experienced a similar problem -- that snow and ice at the edge of the track were to blame. That possibility wasn't considered earlier because trains had been running on the track all day, Pesaturo said.

Let me get this straight...they didn't consider snow and ice were to blame? We just got three straight days of snow! And Charles is an outdoor station! If only there was an MBTA passenger bill of rights that could have forced them to give us food and water while we were stuck in the tunnel for an hour and a half .....