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

[DBM]

I've been to several of these places and I just don't hold them in the same esteem as you do, but there's nothing wrong with that. I will say the walk from the T station to the Tipsy Toboggan is a bit of a haul and not very scenic, while hoofing it to Columbia Rd really seems like a long distance for not much payoff. As an aside I had the pleasure of camping out overnight on the USS Massachusetts with my boys scout troop and while it was uncomfortable as all hell the staff did a really good job. I recommend trying it...once.

It's easy to dismiss the USS Massachusetts for precisely that reason--"oh, it's just an attraction for Boy Scout troops"--but I contend it's an amazing (even if not possessing the most slick and sophisticated "production values") WW2 museum, with some haunting memorabilia. I'll always be struck by seeing, in its gallery of wartime media artifacts, a framed Life magazine cover from 1943 or so, at the height of the Nazi terror machine, featuring Himmler superimposed over a graphic of hundreds of skulls. The caption: "Europe's Policeman."

Also, if you have the chance to visit the USS Alabama in Mobile Bay, it's a similarly awesome spectacle. (When I was there in late March, conditions were already getting oppressive, so it's probably best done between Halloween and St. Patrick's Day)

 

[themissinglink]

Service Changes Planned for Fall River/New Bedford Line This Weekend | News | MBTA

Official website of the MBTA -- schedules, maps, and fare information for Greater Boston's public transportation system, including subway, commuter rail, bus routes, and boat lines.

www.mbta.com

"We understand how these changes impact our riders who deserve an appropriate level of service and we want to express our appreciation for their continued support of transit by extending the fare-free weekend travel on this new line through the end of May," said MBTA General Manager and CEO Phillip Eng.

 

[stick n move]

It's easy to dismiss the USS Massachusetts for precisely that reason--"oh, it's just an attraction for Boy Scout troops"--but I contend it's an amazing (even if not possessing the most slick and sophisticated "production values") WW2 museum, with some haunting memorabilia. I'll always be struck by seeing, in its gallery of wartime media artifacts, a framed Life magazine cover from 1943 or so, at the height of the Nazi terror machine, featuring Himmler superimposed over a graphic of hundreds of skulls. The caption: "Europe's Policeman."

Also, if you have the chance to visit the USS Alabama in Mobile Bay, it's a similarly awesome spectacle. (When I was there in late March, conditions were already getting oppressive, so it's probably best done between Halloween and St. Patrick's Day)

I got to visit the alabama when I was at A school in pensacola for my MOS. Its a navy base but Marines get sent there for school. One of the coolest things ever. I was at nas pensacola for an aviation MOS so we more went to mobile for the aviation museum right there and holy cow it delivered! It has a lockheed a-12 (variant of the sr-71) which are suuuuper rare and suupr badass and a bunch of other badass planes in the massive hangar. Def recommend it.

Speaking of battleship cove nobody has talked about it before that I know of, but I think there should be consideration given to adding the aegis cruiser uss bunker hill (cg-52) which was decommissioned in 2023. Cruisers dont get built anymore so once these are gone they may be the last cruisers ever. On top of that the uss bunker hill was the first us warship to use a vertical launch system, which is now ubiquitous across all navies across the world. It wasnt involved in a world war, but its an extremely important part of us history, naval history, and has served in most modern conflicts from the 80’s to today. Its in long term reserve now, but I wish that instead of eventually scrapping it that we would save it either for battleship cove or charlestown.

She was commissioned in charlestown and supported desert storm, desert shield, southern watch, the taiwan strait crisis, iraqi freedom, and even made historic port calls to vladivostok russia and qingdao china during times of less tension. She was in the gulf when the uss cole bombing happened and was sortied out to provide cover to the other ships in the area where it took place. She was also sent on humanitarian missions to indonesia after the massive earthquake, and the humanitarian mission for the haiti earthquake. I really hope that this piece of modern history doesnt get scrapped and we can add another warship to one of our floating museums.

Lockheed A-12

Uss bunker hill cg-52

 

[themissinglink]

New Bedford commuter train ensnared in delays, cancellations - The New Bedford Light

The South Coast Rail, which launched to great fanfare on March 24, is experiencing hours-long disruptions because of inadequate staffing.

newbedfordlight.org

According to the MBTA, Keolis, the contractor that runs the agency’s commuter rail network, is training additional crews to support the service on the new line. Currently, if a crew member calls out sick or misses their shift, trains may be cancelled if a qualified person is not available to replace them.

Keolis is working to increase the number of “qualified conductors” within the South Coast Rail region, with a plan to reach 65 conductors by early June to increase rail reliability, per the MBTA.

 

[Lrfox]

‘It’s a failure’: South Coast Rail service disruption leaves riders stranded, skeptical of commuter line (paywall)​

The Globe has several quotes from passengers who say they are scared to use it at this point. Creating reliability issues from the start of service is an awful way to kick things off. And miscommunications on the part of the T are even worse - like telling Fall River passengers to take a later train to East Taunton where a shuttle will be waiting, only to have them disembark in the rain to find no waiting shuttles and T employees who were confused by the whole thing.

People will tolerate 90 minute commutes if they're at least reliable. But they won't tolerate reliability that's this bad.

 

[Teban54]

‘It’s a failure’: South Coast Rail service disruption leaves riders stranded, skeptical of commuter line (paywall)​

The Globe has several quotes from passengers who say they are scared to use it at this point. Creating reliability issues from the start of service is an awful way to kick things off. And miscommunications on the part of the T are even worse - like telling Fall River passengers to take a later train to East Taunton where a shuttle will be waiting, only to have them disembark in the rain to find no waiting shuttles and T employees who were confused by the whole thing.

People will tolerate 90 minute commutes if they're at least reliable. But they won't tolerate reliability that's this bad.

At this point, it's a battle between two factors arguing against each other:

• Constant public outcry about SCR's and Old Colony's poor reliability could exert pressure for the state to build Phase 2
• But, if SCR's ridership underperforms (which is quite likely if unreliability continues), it gives the state an excuse to abandon the "failed project" and not invest more

 

[Riverside]

But, if SCR's ridership underperforms (which is quite likely if unreliability continues), it gives the state an excuse to abandon the "failed project" and not invest more

I think it's worth considering what "not invest more" actually means. Does it mean never getting Phase 2? Does it mean reduction in service? Does it mean closing the lines?

At the extreme end -- outright closure -- it's worth noting that, to my knowledge, no project of this scale in North America has been built (by a public agency) and then abandoned. Outright closure would be unprecedented, and while we do live in unprecedented times, that still points to that outcome being unlikely.

If outright closure is off the table, then the T will need to continue (spending money) maintaining the line. In particular, the T will need to run at least a nominal service to maintain route knowledge. So, then the question becomes: what's the cost difference between running 1 "parliamentary train" per week (while still maintaining rails sufficiently for safe running and stations sufficiently to remain open and ADA-compliant) versus running a more conventional schedule (even if a barebones one)? Maybe that difference is significant, but maybe not. In general, it's to the T's advantage to try to squeeze whatever ridership and revenue they can out of the line, and I think the numbers would need to be pretty bad for outright abandonment to make sense.

My point is that the simple presence of the line creates a gravitational pull that biases things in favor of keeping the trains running. And as long as there are trains running, there will be incentive to recoup those costs by finding some way to generate revenue, which in turn, under the right political climate, will create incentive for further investment.

 

[Riverside]

Also, not to trivialize the really shitty experiences riders have had, but the cancellations are staffing issues. Those can't be solved in a matter of weeks, but they can (and likely will) get solved over a matter of months. Eventually the trains will be reliable and public trust will grow again. It may take over a year, but in the lifetime of transit projects, that's par for the course.

In the meantime, the T will need to figure out how to run a reliable barebones weekend schedule, where they can guarantee crew availability. Maybe that will mean slashing the number of weekend trains even further, in the short-term. That's obviously bad in its own right, but the reliability issue is ultimately a planning and expectation-setting issue, which can be mollified relatively quickly.

I think Phase 2 is a long way off, no matter what. The current issues will feel like old news when the time comes for renewed advocacy and public pressure.

 

[Lrfox]

At this point, it's a battle between two factors arguing against each other:

• Constant public outcry about SCR's and Old Colony's poor reliability could exert pressure for the state to build Phase 2
• But, if SCR's ridership underperforms (which is quite likely if unreliability continues), it gives the state an excuse to abandon the "failed project" and not invest more

These are still on the extreme end of the spectrum at this point. Especially because it sounds like most of the issues are staffing related which would impact service no matter what. Thankfully, it's so early that there's just no way they pull the plug completely. They'll probably scale back late night and some weekend service until they can adequately staff it.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

‘It’s a failure’: South Coast Rail service disruption leaves riders stranded, skeptical of commuter line (paywall)​

The Globe has several quotes from passengers who say they are scared to use it at this point. Creating reliability issues from the start of service is an awful way to kick things off. And miscommunications on the part of the T are even worse - like telling Fall River passengers to take a later train to East Taunton where a shuttle will be waiting, only to have them disembark in the rain to find no waiting shuttles and T employees who were confused by the whole thing.

People will tolerate 90 minute commutes if they're at least reliable. But they won't tolerate reliability that's this bad.

The problem is there's not much they can do about overall weekday reliability without cutting service. The schedule is already as tight as can possibly fit on the Old Colony main...too tight for credulity, in fact. Gapping out the trains to neutralize the potential for cascading delays is the only recovery move they have. And they only have so little room to gap out the trains before they have to outright cut slots on somebody's OC branch and/or branches to make it fit. In fact, there's probably no room at all to re-space the weekday trains without cutting or else they would've already sprung into action within the first month to do it. Which means somebody--Greenbush, Kingston, and/or Middleboro--is going to see frequency losses as the end result of a >$1B service expansion investment. Including guaranteed service losses at rush hour when the dispatching chaos is at its most unruly. Despite them knowing from Day 1 that the meets were going to be too brittle to practically work, they rolled the dice on the current schedule because the political firestorm from service cuts was too scary for them to fathom. Now...whether they hem and haw at it awhile...they're going to have to face cutting slots as the only way forward for the day-to-day abysmal OTP, and face all the blowback that entails from South Shore communities whose service was just fine up until this extension forced the issue. It's going to get much, much uglier and more geographically widespread with finger-pointing from here forward. And there's no quick fix that'll satiate it because these service cuts will have to be permanent to stabilize the OTP to a point where Keolis won't get fined for running it.

And it was all depressingly predictable from the jump. Nobody decides to build an extension without first considering how you're going to get a full schedule TO the extension. Whether it was the billion dollars for widening the OC mainline to Braintree or the $2B+ for NEC widening and an up-to-spec Stoughton Route, something big needed to be done to ensure that a full schedule was feasible. One or the other, not neither. Baker's people tried to bullshit around that saying that "neither" was a eureka find, that an arse-end-up built extension which touched no source trackage could work for awhile...and they upselled the purported cost savings. It turns out there were no cost savings; the thing simply isn't going to work without an expensively upgraded mainline as prerequisite. And the people who made those dishonest decisions aren't in office anymore to accept the blame; they cashed out their political favors long ago and stopped showing their faces at the ribbon-cutting. Now, regardless of how much attention gets heaped on belatedly jump-starting the OC mainline widening megaproject, there has to be service loss somewhere(s) on the South Shore for a very prolonged interim to make things work. And lots of people are going to be rightly very angry about that.


This makes it all the more baffling that the separate very preventable staffing-related (not dispatching-related) weekend cancellations were allowed to hit those lines when the weekday OTP was already a festering sore about to explode. At least direct the pain somewhere else where a one-time "Oops!...our bad" can feasibly mend fences. Letting South Coast Rail melt down on days when OTP is expected to be better from something preventable like staff shortages is such an own-goal when that is now the prelude to the tough decisions they have upcoming to make about stopping it from melting down from non-preventable weekday mainline congestion. It's all just spewing radiation all over the entire Old Colony division that no amount of reactive PR is going to clean up.

 

[RandomWalk]

If Baker decides to run for Senate in 2026, he should be pounded into a pancake with the operational mess of SCR.

 

[GP40MC]

Easter weekend was kind of a trifecta for crew staffing issues, etc. On Saturday you had the Concord 250th Revolutionary modified schedule. Heard they were short nearly 10 engineers on the
north side along. Couple that with Marathon events (modified Worcester line schedule), Easter weekend. A perfect storm.

Another small, but still a pinch point, is the single track at RT 24 at the south end of East Taunton station. At least construction has started in replacing and widening the bridge so it can accommodate
double track, thus completing Stevens Interlocking full potential. My train out of New Bedford a few weeks ago waited 8 minutes for a slightly late southbound to clear the work area.

 

[Teban54]

Also, not to trivialize the really shitty experiences riders have had, but the cancellations are staffing issues. Those can't be solved in a matter of weeks, but they can (and likely will) get solved over a matter of months. Eventually the trains will be reliable and public trust will grow again. It may take over a year, but in the lifetime of transit projects, that's par for the course.

These are still on the extreme end of the spectrum at this point. Especially because it sounds like most of the issues are staffing related which would impact service no matter what. Thankfully, it's so early that there's just no way they pull the plug completely. They'll probably scale back late night and some weekend service until they can adequately staff it.

To be clear, there are two issues at hand:

1. Staffing issues on weekends that caused trips to be canceled, heavily delayed (1+ hours) or converted to shuttles unexpectedly. These incidents are getting more media attention, understandably so for their disruptiveness.
2. "Regular" delays on the Old Colony line that are not limited to weekends. In fact, it may be happening on most (if not all) days, affecting multiple Old Colony lines.

#2 is what I'm more concerned about, and what I implied in my original comment (despite the news article at hand focusing more on #1).

While I haven't been following CR on-time performance closely, I had checked the MBTA alerts section 3-5 times during daytime since SCR opened... And almost every time, at least one Old Colony line was showing a 15-20 min delay at least.

I wasn't implying the worst-case scenario of discontinuing SCR service and ripping the stations apart completely (although Watertown and Arborway branches did happen). The operational costs are probably manageable, even in the long term. But to me, "not investing more" would mean:

• Not building Phase 2
• Not double-tracking the Old Colony line (yes, I know the T is starting some planning for it, but low ridership would be a good excuse to be rejected funding)
• Or both

And, as F-Line said, a very real possibility is reducing service levels on Old Colony lines. While arguably less likely, it's still very plausible even if not inevitable, and its operational and political effects would be very bad.

(Keep in mind, there was already some noise from Greenbush and Kingston riders whose schedules got shuffled due to SCR, making previously well-times commute trips less convenient.)

 

[Teban54]

And it was all depressingly predictable from the jump. Nobody decides to build an extension without first considering how you're going to get a full schedule TO the extension. Whether it was the billion dollars for widening the OC mainline to Braintree or the $2B+ for NEC widening and an up-to-spec Stoughton Route, something big needed to be done to ensure that a full schedule was feasible. One or the other, not neither. Baker's people tried to bullshit around that saying that "neither" was a eureka find, that an arse-end-up built extension which touched no source trackage could work for awhile...and they upselled the purported cost savings. It turns out there were no cost savings; the thing simply isn't going to work without an expensively upgraded mainline as prerequisite.

IIRC, in the planning stages of SCR (where the MassDOT project page once included some tentative headways, possibly from earlier reports), commuter rail was still operating on a very peak-oriented model, as opposed to the more even midday headways that we see now. Rush hour peak direction was getting much higher frequencies than all other times and directions.

Could it be the case that, due to scheduling that assumed the Old Colony single track would send multiple peak-direction trains at a time, they were able to generate a feasible schedule that worked with the pre-COVID philosophy... But not now?

 

[BosMaineiac]

Another small, but still a pinch point, is the single track at RT 24 at the south end of East Taunton station. At least construction has started in replacing and widening the bridge so it can accommodate
double track, thus completing Stevens Interlocking full potential. My train out of New Bedford a few weeks ago waited 8 minutes for a slightly late southbound to clear the work area.

Why are they starting construction now on a pinch point south of East Taunton? How could this not have been predicted, or am I missing something?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Why are they starting construction now on a pinch point south of East Taunton? How could this not have been predicted, or am I missing something?

The bridge work is wadded up in the 24/140 interchange rebuild, since it's a MassHighway not MBTA bridge.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

If Baker decides to run for Senate in 2026, he should be pounded into a pancake with the operational mess of SCR.

Baker left office quite popular overall, but it's noteable that the last approval-rating polling that was done had him deep underwater on the issue of transportation. His mishandling of the MBTA definitely sticks to him.

 

[GP40MC]

The bridge work is wadded up in the 24/140 interchange rebuild, since it's a MassHighway not MBTA bridge.

Not to mention the original contractor went bankrupt (?) or pulled out, thus delaying that whole interchange project for a year?

 

[Stlin]

Not to mention the original contractor went bankrupt (?) or pulled out, thus delaying that whole interchange project for a year?

The original contractor Cardi Corporation - absolutely went bankrupt in Dec 2023, but was teetering for at least a year before then - it really was quite reliant on RIDOT, but after losing Washington Bridge repairs (after FHWA objected) and 6/10 to Barletta? No chance. That said, even when Cardi won the 24/140 project in 2021, the estimated completion was 2027. Afaik, that's still the case.

 

[GP40MC]

South Coast Rail staffing shortages lead to canceled trains just one month after launch

Chris Lisinski

State House News Service

April 25, 2025

The MBTA is holding Keolis accountable for staffing shortages causing cancellations on the new South Coast Rail line.
The MBTA has fined Keolis over $50,000 for the disruptions so far.
Keolis claims to have sufficient staff numbers but lacks resilience in training and qualification processes.

MBTA General Manager Phil Eng pledged Thursday to hold commuter rail operator Keolis "accountable" for staffing problems that caused a string of deflating service disruptions on the brand-new South Coast Rail extension.

Several weekend trains have been canceled on the Fall River/New Bedford Line in the month since it launched, in some cases prompting reports of stranded passengers or lengthy shuttle bus rides to replace trips.

A representative for Keolis, the private company contracted to operate the commuter rail, attributed the upheaval to problems with train crew availability.

Eng said Keolis officials communicated to the T before the extension opened that "they were ready to deliver this level of service."

"It's their responsibility to address these issues. It's their responsibility to ensure that we can deliver that level of service and what they're going to be doing going forward," Eng told MBTA board members at a Thursday meeting. "We're going to hold them accountable for that."

A T spokesperson said Thursday that the MBTA has imposed $51,541 in fines against Keolis for the disruptions so far.

Keolis Commuter Services CEO Abdellah Chajai joined Eng at the public meeting, where he faced several pointed questions from board members.

Chajai said commuter rail staff need to receive federally-mandated qualifications, calling the process "quite complex." He insisted that Keolis had "the right level of staffing" for South Coast Rail but "didn't have enough resilience about the training."

"We had enough qualified people from day one. It's just a lack of resilience," Chajai told MBTA board members.

Keolis began training and qualifying crews in early January, the company said. By the time the Fall River/New Bedford Line launched, the company had 44 conductors qualified for the 32 shifts per week required.

As of Thursday, there were 54 conductors qualified, and Keolis is pushing to reach 65 by early in June, the company said.

Asked if he was satisfied by Keolis's explanation and response, Eng said his team has "made it clear that [Keolis leaders] need to address the qualifications of employees and they need to accelerate the qualification of employees."

"The vacancies that they encountered, that should have been addressed in advance. Unfortunately, it wasn't," he said. "But they are working right now to accelerate qualifications of not only conductors and engineers, but also managers, to have the ability to backfill some of those positions."

"Going forward, the directive is that they need to qualify and train every conductor [and] engineer on the whole south side to ensure that they have more than enough, ample employees to cover these shifts," Eng added. "Because southeastern Massachusetts and everywhere else, they deserve the same level of robust train service that was scheduled."

South Coast Rail's first phase launched on March 24 to major fanfare, reviving train service between Boston and the region for the first time in more than six decades. Scores of elected officials attended the ribbon-cutting, where Gov. Maura Healey said the $1.1 billion extension would be "transformative."

Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian, a member of the T's board, on Thursday recalled the "vibrancy" he observed at the project's opening day.

"People of the South Coast were so hopeful about what was occurring, and they were so excited, and I think they felt respected in some ways," Koutoujian said. "That's almost the most heartbreaking part of how this has fallen off track, so to speak."

The T initially planned to make South Coast Rail trips fare-free on weekends through April, and the agency announced last week that it would extend that period through May amid the challenges.

Keolis has been under contract to run the commuter rail network for more than a decade, and after several extensions, the agreement is set to expire in mid-2027. MBTA officials are weighing whether to change the contract model for the next procurement.