This Thanksgiving, my family and friends didn’t really ask how my job was going. Instead they asked, “I hear you’re commuting to Boston?’’ with a grimace, and cringed when I told them I take the commuter rail, but at least I can read a book while watching the sea of red brake lights on the Pike. Lesser of two evils, right?

But is it really?

In the last few months, the Framingham/Worcester line has experienced mechanical failures, cascading delays from late trains, express trains turning into full-stop ones, late arrival of equipment, and speed restrictions due to heat and slippery rails, not to mention overcrowding.

That’s why it didn’t come as any surprise to read that only 61 percent of trains on the Framingham/Worcester line have run on time in the past 30 days (“Worcester/Framingham line service worsens,’’ Metro, Nov. 27). Yes, we are used to late trains, but that doesn’t mean we should simply accept it.

Delays have ranged from 10 minutes to hours, but no matter how long, they matter. It’s tiring to wonder what we’ll be hit with day after day, especially so when those 10 minutes mean the loss of my morning coffee before work.

Meghan Murdock

Hopkinton