It sounded plausible in this winter of commuter discontent, but it wasn’t true.
The MBTA’s service alert system mistakenly warned riders of widespread delays on the struggling commuter rail system until the end of the week, transportation officials said Wednesday.
At 5:39 a.m. Wednesday, the system, which sends out messages by text and e-mail, published a false morning commute forecast, said Mac Daniel, a spokesman for Keolis Commuter Services, which operates the commuter rail for the MBTA. The information was quickly corrected, Daniel said.
MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo assured commuters the alert system was still reliable. He said the false alarm was issued only for the commuter rail, not the subway, bus, or commuter boat lines.
“The T-Alerts system was not hacked,” he said. “We have narrowed it to an input error and/or a technical issue. Tech staff continues to look into it. It’s not affecting our ability to issue legitimate service alerts this morning.”
Ironically, the false alarm came on a morning when the commuter rail had no cancellations and few delays as of 8 a.m.
“This is one of the better mornings we’ve had in quite some time,” Daniel said.
The commuter rail continues to function on a reduced schedule, running about 62 percent of normal weekday service, Daniel said.
Daniel said there was minimal impact from Tuesday night’s snow. Trains did not encounter switch problems during the morning commute, and the only delays — 15 to 20 minutes on the Franklin Line — were due to extra stops.
Some trains and platforms were crowded, but Daniel said the system was running extra service on the Framingham/Worcester, Haverhill, Newburyport/Rockport, and Providence/Stoughton lines so that all passengers could make it onto trains.
Later in the day, a train on the Fitchburg/South Acton Line was delayed 70 minutes due to a mechanical problem and signal issues, the MBTA said around 2:15 p.m. on its service alerts webpage.
Pesaturo said one problem affecting commuter service has been the severe weather delaying efforts to repair 40 new locomotives that were delivered to the MBTA late last year at a cost of $220 million. The locomotives have been sidelined to have their traction motor bearings replaced after the manufacturer discovered last summer that at least some of the bearings are faulty, the Globe reported earlier this month. Ten are now in service.
“The severe weather has played an adverse role in trying to process more locomotives through the testing/acceptance program,” Pesaturo said.
Nicole Dungca of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Aneri Pattani can be reached at aneri.pattani@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @apattani95.