![]() The drill ended about an hour after it began, with the passengers placed in a triage area, grouped by the varying levels of injuries, from the least critical to life-threatening.Īt the conclusion of the training exercise, McCabe said all the agencies involved will study the simulation to determine its effectiveness, and make any adjustments for future drills.įor the most part, the MBTA's commuter rail component has been spared the accidents and breakdowns that have vexed the T's subway and trolley system. "It's all adds to the experience for the (emergency crews)," Cachecho said. Some passengers could be walked out of the train cars, while others were carried out on backboards.Īlex Cachecho, who served as a logistics coordinator during the drill, explained the passengers are briefed on what injuries to act out and what to say to emergency responders. The emergency crews rushed into action, establishing and executing a plan to remove those on board. Within moments, Lowell fire trucks and ambulances arrived on scene. They go through the process, go through the procedures, and then they try it out in real time."ĭuring the simulation, a conductor walked through the train cars, checking on the passengers, asking if anyone was hurt. There are several briefings they all attend. "It's cross-organizational, so there's mutual aid," McCabe explained. In addition to MBTA Railroad Operations and Transit Police, they included Keolis Commuter Services, CSX Transportation, Lowell Police Department, Trinity Ambulance, Lowell General Hospital, UMass Lowell, and the Lowell, Dracut, Tyngsboro and Littleton fire departments. To ensure the exercise mirrored actual conditions, an array of agencies participated in the drill. The move was said to have a beneficial effect on traffic in downtown Fitchburg and Lowell.McCabe said several passengers - mostly volunteers from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy - portrayed people with various injuries, necessitating evacuations by emergency crews. įollowing MediaNews' purchase of The Sun and Nashoba Publications weeklies covering several towns between Lowell and Leominster, the company consolidated printing in 2002 for all of these properties at a new $7 million press plant in Devens, Massachusetts. Average circulation was given at the time of sale as 19,640, daily, and 20,087 on Sunday. No price was released in the transaction between two private companies. Its longtime owner, Thomson Corporation, as part of a nationwide divestment of small-market newspapers, sold the Fitchburg paper to MediaNews. īy 1997, the Sentinel & Enterprise had switched to seven-day morning publication. The weekday papers remained afternoon publications. In the later years of this arrangement, the Saturday paper was published in the morning and called the "weekend edition." In 1990, the Sentinel & Enterprise debuted a Sunday morning edition. In the 1980s, the paper was known as the Fitchburg-Leominster Sentinel & Enterprise, and published only six days a week, Monday through Saturday, in the afternoon. The exterior of the Sentinel & Enterprise building in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.įormed in 1973 by the merger of two newspapers covering adjacent cities, the daily traces its lineage back to the Fitchburg Sentinel (founded 1838) and Leominster Enterprise (1873).
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