The first call Gov. Charlie Baker would have made following the disastrous Red Line derailment would have been to Mike Capuano.

Then Capuano would have shortly gotten calls from Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo.

All would have sought his help after a Red Line car left the tracks near the JFK/UMass station in Dorchester June 11 with 61 passengers on board, damaging signals and fouling up the whole transit system

Now the Red Line has become the Black & Blue Line of the Massachusetts Bay Trauma Authority as irate passengers, who depend on the T, are jammed into fewer and slower cars as workmen seek to repair damages that will not be complete until the end of summer.

Not that the Green, Blue and Orange lines are faring much better. Despite the millions of dollars Baker has thrown into the system things are getting worse, not better

It’s like the war in Afghanistan, the more you spend the more nothing changes. Riding the MBTA these days is like taking a bus ride on the Kabul Transit Authority.

Now Baker wants the Legislature to give him an additional $50 million to deal with the expected night and weekend closures so repairs can be made and people can get to work.

Capuano could have come to the rescue. He would have been part of the discussion with Baker, Walsh and DeLeo. He would have been out front with proposals and solutions.

But nobody called. Capuano, 67, doesn’t work here anymore.

Once the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the veteran Congressman from Somerville was defeated for re-election in the 2018 election by Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley, 45.

Did anybody call Pressley? There was no reason to call. She couldn’t do anything anyway. Transportation is not her bag.

“Elections have consequences,” Barack Obama famously told GOP lawmakers shortly after his 2009 inauguration. “I won.” Sometimes the consequences are different than expected, however, as it turned out when Donald Trump was elected in 2016.

Pressley’s election also had consequences, some not so good, for the MBTA.

Capuano’s loss was a serious setback for the MBTA and for the transportation needs of the commonwealth. Capuano directed millions of federal dollars into the MBTA, as well as to construction projects, over the years.

He was also instrumental in obtaining $1 billion in federal funds for the $3 billion Green Line Extension into Somerville and Medford that is now under construction. Its completion will represent an economic boon to the region.

Capuano had a close relationship with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who campaigned for him. Had Capuano been re-elected, he would have become chairman of the Committee on Transportation. The appointment would have come at a time when the Trump administration is prepared to spend billions of dollars to improve the country’s infrastructure.

That is all gone now. The voters in the 7th Congressional District (Boston-Somerville-Cambridge) voted to replace a fighter for transportation with a social justice warrior.

Pressley’s move to impeach Trump has not endeared her to Pelosi, who is attempting to dampen the drive for impeachment. Pelosi knows that impeachment is a loser of an issue for Democrats in 2020.

Pressley, along with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, also voted against the $4.5 billion immigration aid package that Pelosi pushed through the House last week.

Pelosi did not need their votes to get the aid package though the House. But their vote is indicative of their hatred of Trump getting in the way of humanitarian aid.

Pressley has become a known player on the national scene after teaming up with Ocasio-Cortez, which is a long way from the Boston City Council.

But whether she can deliver for Boston and her district in any financial meaningful ways has yet to be proven.

As one lobbyist put it: “It’s one thing to belong to the left-wing chattering class; it’s another to deliver for your constituents. So far she’s bought home peanuts.”

Last week, veteran U.S. Rep. Bill Keating of Cape Cod secured $5 million in transportation funding for restructuring work for the Bourne and Sagamore bridges.

The MBTA? Crickets.

Email comments to luke1825@aol.com.