Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail (South Coast Rail)

Teban54 said:
I did an estimate of likely frequencies for each branch here on Reddit. TL;DR: One train every 2-2.5 hours in peak direction. To me, that's a much bigger issue than travel time, whether you're commuting to Boston, Dorchester or Brockton. Not to mention that Fall River and New Bedford don't get equal access - if one city gets a good time slot, the other is either 1 hour too early or 1 hour too late.

Such an outcome would be the antithesis of justice for Fall River and New Bedford. I hope it doesn't happen, but...
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I took the project page wording to mean there would be 3 bi-directional peak round trips per branch with some short turning at M/L to reach 26 total round trips. They bought additional equipment specifically to be ready in time for increased trains on the line with SCR which suggests an increase in service. As-is the line runs only 14 round trips per day. 26 would almost be a doubling of service so I think 30min frequencies will be coming to Brockton rather than 120+min. Not sure what the off-peak frequency part means though. 3 morning plus 3 evening peak each branch for a total of 12 round trips. Plus the 3 each(?) off-peak midday and 3 evening are another 12 for 24 round trips. Add a couple short turns and you hit 26 and the numbers they mentioned. With the capacity restrictions on the shared section I think the losers here would be Greenbush and Kingston getting a service reduction.
Your analysis could be the correct one though and that would indeed be devastating for the service area.
 
Koopzilla24 said:
I think the losers here would be Greenbush and Kingston getting a service reduction.
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That might be my biggest concern. SCR is not only worthless, it's going to end up harming existing service. You can only send so many trains and there's only so much room at South Station.

You could extend this to E-W rail too.
 
jklo said:
That might be my biggest concern. SCR is not only worthless, it's going to end up harming existing service. You can only send so many trains and there's only so much room at South Station.

You could extend this to E-W rail too.
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Top priorities IMO are: Expand South Station (eliminate the USPS bldg and expand the SS trackage), and double track the Old Colony line through Boston and Quincy.
 
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Charlie_mta said:
Top priorities IMO are: Expand South Station (eliminate the USPS bldg and expand the SS trackage), and double track the Old Colony line through Boston and Quincy.
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And if at all possible give SS a few underground tracks to at least give a starting point for NSRL, yes it would be more expensive now but I suspect we would really regret it later on.
 
TheRatmeister said:
And if at all possible give SS a few underground tracks to at least give a starting point for NSRL, yes it would be more expensive now but I suspect we would really regret it later on.
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That would be pointless. SS Under is pretty much the single most expensive component for NSRL. You have to build mile-long lead tunnels to get down there. And if you're going to be TBM'ing the TBM has to have an exit chute otherwise it's going to stay embedded down there forever blocking any future tunneling progress.

There is no installment plan for NSRL. If we're building it, we're building it all at once.
 
jklo said:
That might be my biggest concern. SCR is not only worthless, it's going to end up harming existing service. You can only send so many trains and there's only so much room at South Station.

You could extend this to E-W rail too.
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The South Station bottleneck, beyond the obvious limited track space, primarily the result of the very antiquated interlocking which is officially undergoing fully funded modernization and expected to complete in 2028. I think the current system is only capable of managing a few trains in the interlocking at a time, this restricts how quickly a train can be turned around. The station moves about 20tph currently at peak. With better signaling and more efficient turnaround times transitmatters estimates the station can handle 26-30tph which I think is a little optimistic given similar sized stations like Glasgow Central only handle about 24tph in their terminal station that has 2 more tracks.
*caveat to this below

While SS Expansion or NSRL is surely needed for frequent regional rail I don’t think there will be a problem with E-W Rail as their plan stands. Amtrak has certain slots reserved for their trains at South Station that are I think 1 or 2 30min slots of each hour or something. *This effectively reduces non-Amtrak use to 11-12 of the 13 tracks. But what this does mean is that Amtrak needs to be able to fit any E-W service into its existing slots without taking away from the Commuter Rail. At least I would think so.
 
I was going to say that a comparison of East-West and SCR is not really warranted in that there is no way to handicap East-West by sending it on a roundabout route like SCR Phase I. There is one route to Springfield: the MBTA Worcester Line to its namesake city and then CSX's Boston Subdivision to Springfield. However, I just checked the Lake Shore Limited timetable and it's about 2.5 hours from South Station to Springfield Union Station. Drive time is a mere 1.5 hours. Even assuming traffic bumps that number up, I doubt it would be consistently bad enough to close a one-hour gap very often. Unless the East-West upgrades produce substantial timesavings, I am a little worried that it could indeed be a let-down that saps will for more rail upgrades in the state.
 
michaelw37 said:
I was going to say that a comparison of East-West and SCR is not really warranted in that there is no way to handicap East-West by sending it on a roundabout route like SCR Phase I. There is one route to Springfield: the MBTA Worcester Line to its namesake city and then CSX's Boston Subdivision to Springfield.
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There is no room for it on the Worcester Line without hurting existing service. At 2019 service levels, they were pushing 4 tph already. Not sure if you can do more, esp given the line's reputation of being so late.

I believe the LSL (and cargo runs) runs outside of realistic commuting patterns.
 
michaelw37 said:
I was going to say that a comparison of East-West and SCR is not really warranted in that there is no way to handicap East-West by sending it on a roundabout route like SCR Phase I. There is one route to Springfield: the MBTA Worcester Line to its namesake city and then CSX's Boston Subdivision to Springfield. However, I just checked the Lake Shore Limited timetable and it's about 2.5 hours from South Station to Springfield Union Station. Drive time is a mere 1.5 hours. Even assuming traffic bumps that number up, I doubt it would be consistently bad enough to close a one-hour gap very often. Unless the East-West upgrades produce substantial timesavings, I am a little worried that it could indeed be a let-down that saps will for more rail upgrades in the state.
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The current grant should shrink BOS-SPG travel times down to about 2:05 by uprating the track speed. On a Friday afternoon that's par or slightly better than the increasingly horrible car commute.
 
jklo said:
There is no room for it on the Worcester Line without hurting existing service. At 2019 service levels, they were pushing 4 tph already. Not sure if you can do more, esp given the line's reputation of being so late.

I believe the LSL (and cargo runs) runs outside of realistic commuting patterns.
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So we should just accept MBTA "slop ops"? That lines capacity should be at least 8tph
 
michaelw37 said:
I was going to say that a comparison of East-West and SCR is not really warranted in that there is no way to handicap East-West by sending it on a roundabout route like SCR Phase I. There is one route to Springfield: the MBTA Worcester Line to its namesake city and then CSX's Boston Subdivision to Springfield. However, I just checked the Lake Shore Limited timetable and it's about 2.5 hours from South Station to Springfield Union Station. Drive time is a mere 1.5 hours. Even assuming traffic bumps that number up, I doubt it would be consistently bad enough to close a one-hour gap very often. Unless the East-West upgrades produce substantial timesavings, I am a little worried that it could indeed be a let-down that saps will for more rail upgrades in the state.
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Transitmatters suggests that 90 min service would be feasible with RR, and people are forgetting that Springfield service could also serve as part of Worcester frequency upgrades
 
michaelw37 said:
I was going to say that a comparison of East-West and SCR is not really warranted in that there is no way to handicap East-West by sending it on a roundabout route like SCR Phase I. There is one route to Springfield: the MBTA Worcester Line to its namesake city and then CSX's Boston Subdivision to Springfield. However, I just checked the Lake Shore Limited timetable and it's about 2.5 hours from South Station to Springfield Union Station. Drive time is a mere 1.5 hours. Even assuming traffic bumps that number up, I doubt it would be consistently bad enough to close a one-hour gap very often. Unless the East-West upgrades produce substantial timesavings, I am a little worried that it could indeed be a let-down that saps will for more rail upgrades in the state.
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I can think of several ways to unnecessarily lengthen Springfield service;)
 
Tallguy said:
So we should just accept MBTA "slop ops"? That lines capacity should be at least 8tph
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I guess. That's every 7.5 minutes. That seems unrealistic that Keolis could keep schedule even if allowed to have trains that close.
 
Tallguy said:
They do in Europe.
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Trains from Schiphol to Amsterdam Zuid/Lelylaan and back, often arrive and depart in 5 minute intervals or even less, as far as I'm aware. That is metro level frequencies on the mainline rail network of the Netherlands. Even during off peak weekend hours, Dutch trains still arrive and depart in 10 minute frequencies or better between Schiphol and Amsterdam; which is signficantly better than the metro/subway/rapid transit of the MBTA Red Line, even during peak hours, in Boston (Red line trains arrive every 18 - 22 minutes, every 18 min peak rush hour periods).

There are also intercity trains every 10 - 15 minutes from Amsterdam to Eindhoven on weekdays as well, which share tracks with local sprinter stop trains, so there are always trains arriving every 10 minutes or better, so quite a bit of a lot of train traffic on mainline conventional rail. The proposal now is by 2025 to run sprinters every 5 minutes between The Hague and Rotterdam, on top of intercity services.

I'm still amazed by how much European and Dutch rail service there is compared to MBTA Commuter Rail, and South Coast Rail is getting alternating 3.5 hour frequencies, maybe every 2 - 2.5 hours during rush hour. One city, say New Bedford could get an 8:35 time slot to arrive at Boston MA South Station, and Fall River would have to contend with either a 7:20 arrival or a 9:50 arrival.
 
jklo said:
Must have more than 2 tracks then.
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In the Netherlands example above there is some quad track in the very core of the network, but most of the high frequency is done on dual track only. Extensive use of preventative maintenance (no dead trains on the tracks), lots of track and train sensors, and big data based analytics to continuously monitor performance and prevent even minor delays (which tend to cascade). 92% on-time performance (within 3 minutes). Simultaneous arrival/departure, cross-platform transfers between lines, are a common feature.

It is basically about wanting to make the trains run on time, then using readily available tools and technology to do it.
 
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