I’ve always worked out by 495 not adjacent to commuter rail. So living in town without a car would have been impossible. Indeed would have been too long a commute for me with a car.
The most amazing part of that commute was that most of the commuters actually did a cross-platform transfer at North Station from the Newburyport/Rockport line to the Fitchburg line. Again, one reason it worked is that the conductors on the outbound train would hold a few minutes of the Newburyport train was late.