Hi, I've been playing the new MBTA Worcester Line DLC and I've noticed that the stopping points are strange and don't always fit the train in the platform or align the doors of the trains with the level boarding area (the small section of the platform raised to the train floor level to allow wheelchair users to board). For example, leaving Boston South station, you stop at Boston Back Bay at the correct marker, but there is a perfectly good level boarding area at the end of the platform that no trains will ever use. I doubt that MBTA would build disabled access facilites just to have their trains ignore them. Does anyone know why this happens and if it's accurate to real life?
I saw someone on Reddit say they stop off the end of the platform so 2 doors can be on the raised part of the instead of one, not sure about Back bay though
From what I've heard, the stop markers at Back Bay are just like that for some reason. I believe the engineers ignore the signs, and just spot with two cars on the accessible platform. There is a similar thing happening on the NEC platforms, where they have stop signs halfway down the platform also. Again, those are ignored, because they have a policy against stopping with a diesel on the platform. As for the rest of the route, I've found a couple of stations that could probably have their stop signs moved ±10 ft, but I'm too unfamiliar with the real route comment on their accuracy.
I was watching videos of Back Bay and yeah, they do seem to stop at the raised platforms. But interesringly on all videos there are people who were waiting at the other end of the platforms, so they start running towards the train to catch it. So I wonder if it's somewhat random?
So what I'm assuming then is that the stop markers at Back Bay pre-date the level boarding, and haven't been moved yet. The other stop markers are about 70% correctly placed, only being off by a small margin when they're wrong.
That could be the case. In Boston Providence at Route 128 you also have the full high platform, then an abandoned low platform with stop markers for different lengths. I assume the station got rebuilt in the recent past and the old low low platform with the stop markers remained there.
