He's a Day Tripper

“I officially rode the entire Red Line today as of this second,” a recent Facebook post from Dalen L. Ferreira ’19 reads. Ferreira describes the Harvard to Ashmont, Braintree to Alewife journey in detail. “All that fun for $2.10!!!!!!”

“Gonna go finish up the orange line in about 25 minutes... anyone care to join me?” another post asks.

For Ferreira, this is just part of another weekend spent enjoying the sights—and sounds—of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

“I know a lot of people don’t like that metallic screeching sound—I don’t know, I kind of like it,” Ferreira confesses when we meet.

I asked Dalen L. Ferreira ‘19 about his favorite experience on the T. He told me he couldn’t think of one but said, “I just finished the orange line, but it was cold, so I didn’t stay for too long.” By Alana M Steinberg

While most students take Boston public transit simply to get from point A to point B, Ferreira rides the T for pleasure. The Sayville, N.Y. native first took the T during Visitas last April, and enjoyed it so much that he’s made it his mission to explore every corner of the subway tracks. Before winter break, he rode the entirety of the Red and Blue Lines, covered most of the Orange Line, and took a day trip to Providence.

“It’s a good way to get out of Harvard for a while, especially if you’re stressed about work, which I personally haven’t been too much,” Ferreira says. “But if you’re really stressed out, bring a book on there and read for a while. It could maybe give you inspiration.”

For Ferreira, that inspiration often comes in the form of musical patterns he hears on the train. As a member of the Harvard University Band, Ferreira counts listening to his surroundings as one of the major draws of public transit. “I’m getting to a point where I can hear certain things and I can recognize similarities along the route,” Ferreira says. He is currently brainstorming ways to turn those repetitions into music.

The MBTA connoisseur has hung several authentic T signs in his Canaday single. One, a 12-foot-long artifact of the Green Line, was a Christmas gift from his girlfriend back home. Another is a decommissioned commuter rail sign that he happened upon at the MBTA warehouse.

After some initial surprise, Ferreira’s six suitemates warmed up to the signs. “They thought [the T sign] was ridiculous and large, but then we actually used it to measure some things in the common room because we couldn’t find a tape measure,” Ferreira says.

Many of Ferreira’s friends, his suitemates included, are perplexed by his hobby. “A lot of people don’t seem to understand the pleasure of riding trains,” he says.

“People think it’s dirty, which, yeah, but just [use] hand sanitizer,” Ferreira says.

Members of the 2019 Facebook group can expect to see more of Ferreira’s travel updates on their news feeds. This semester, he hopes to travel to Brunswick, Maine, finish the Orange Line (which he calls “filthy”), and complete the B, C, and D branches of the Green Line.

Ferreira takes longer trips with friends or Facebook enlistees for safety reasons, but prefers to travel alone on a daily basis. “I find myself to be kind of an observant person where occasionally, like early morning, I want to just get on and think,” Ferreira explains. During these adventures, he thinks about music and plans future train trips.

For Ferreira, time on the T is never wasted. “If you have to spend time watching an hour of YouTube videos that are really not going to benefit you at all, or living in your surroundings for an hour—for a decent price, too—then I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to just go,” he says.