Regional Rail (RUR) & North-South Rail Link (NSRL)

[themissinglink]

MBTA receives nearly $140 million grant for Haverhill Line improvement - The Boston Globe

The MBTA will also upgrade the Reading, North Wilmington, Ballardvale, and Andover stations with high-level platforms, improving accessibility.

www.bostonglobe.com

The high-level platforms that are planned for the Haverhill Line will be shorter than 800 feet:

According to an MBTA spokesperson, “the plan for all four stations (at Andover, Ballardvale, North Wilmington, and Reading) is to have two-sided, short high-level platforms. They will not be full-length (not 800 feet), but they will be accessible.”

The project will be split into two phases, with the first breaking ground in 2028 and the second breaking ground in 2029:

A project schedule from the MBTA’s grant application suggests that these improvements could be in place by 2030.
The grant application suggests that the work will proceed in two phases. Phase 1 would begin construction in early 2028, and the shorter segment of double-track from Lowell Junction through Ballardvale, plus the construction of new high-level platforms at Ballardvale and Andover stations.
“Phase 2” would begin construction in 2029, and includes the longer section of double-track from Reading to Wilmington Junction (where the Haverhill Line intersects with the Wildcat branch line) and the new high-level platforms at Reading and North Wilmington stations.

The Tewksbury Street grade crossing will be eliminated as part of the first phase:

https://mass.streetsblog.org/2026/08/21/mbta-wins-140-million-to-run-more-trains-to-lawrence-and-haverhill

 

[Highwayguy]

Overall good news, but Phase II double tracking N Wilmington to Reading is a head scratcher. Isn’t the long term goal still to route outer Haverhill via Lowell?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Overall good news, but Phase II double tracking N Wilmington to Reading is a head scratcher. Isn’t the long term goal still to route outer Haverhill via Lowell?

If it tightens up the on-time performance, it's probably worth doing right now in spite of the future uncertainty as increased reliability will drive some immediate ridership gains even predating line-wide frequency increases. Haverhill definitely needs that. Although I was led to believe that the single-tracking around Ballardvale and Andover was a much bigger source of delays than Reading-Wilmington Jct., at least once you've doubled-up Reading Station -proper with a passing solution for thru trains to get around short-turning trains. Double-track on the blank slot of a double-track ROW doesn't cost all that much, and there wouldn't be a lot of signal mods involved since they aren't planning any crossovers between modded Reading Station and modded Wilmington Jct. (i.e. the short-turn location is not moving any further north of Reading Station). So the far bigger cost variable here is going to be whether they can keep the station renovation costs at the 4 affected stops sane without doing something stupid like more dwell-killing 400 ft. platforms.

AFAIK the goal is still to separate Reading trains from thru-Haverhill trains when the time comes to increase frequencies beyond 128, and beyond this first reach of :30 service to Reading. Traffic management around the grade crossings and Medford-Malden single-track adds a bit of chaos factor to the schedule, so for timekeeping accuracy it's better to keep the longer-distance trains on the mostly grade-separated route and keep the trains that do have to juggle the single-track and crossings on a much shorter schedule so delay time simply doesn't have enough opportunity to accrue. Especially when you consider that there needs to be an orderly procession of traffic on the combined Eastern + Western Routes through Somerville to the Reading Jct. split while basically doubling, tripling, quadrupling overall future frequencies through there. Can't have one more-brittle-than-the-others schedule dragging things down for everyone on the combined trunk. Plus the travel time difference via the NH Main is large enough that it'll shrink the over-long thru-Haverhill schedules and drive more ridership on the outer portion of the line even while making the local stops West Medford-Wilmington. The T's own Rail Vision studies and the TransitMatters RER analysis both conclude that relocation to the NH Main is a no-brainer on the pure benefits, never mind for just avoiding the constraints.

 

[themissinglink]

MBTA Reveals Its Plans For 'Phase 1' of New Widett Circle Rail Yard - Streetsblog Massachusetts

The planned facility will include charging facilities for electric trains and the first phase is expected to be operational by 2030.

mass.streetsblog.org

In a public hearing on Wednesday evening at the State Transportation Building in downtown Boston, MBTA staff revealed that they are now ready to begin construction on the first phase of a new rail yard for the site. The work will demolish several of the former warehouse buildings, relocate utilities, and add fill to raise the ground elevation of the site (which used to be the middle of Boston’s South Bay) and protect it from rising sea levels. Once that site work is complete, the T will install six new storage tracks in the center of the site, each of which would be long enough to store a 9-car trainset.
Those tracks will also have overhead catenary structures that can recharge new battery-powered trains. The T is currently negotiating to lease 7 four-car battery-powered trains that would run on the Fairmount Line by the early 2030s; the agency is also shopping for 10 new battery-electric train engines that would run on the electrified Providence Line.
Alistair Sawers, the MBTA’s Director of Rail Modernization, explained that the new layover tracks at Widett would also store older diesel trains.
[...]
The T hopes to solicit construction bids for the Phase 1 project later this fall, and begin construction in March. Construction is expected to take two years, followed by several months of testing and commissioning the new tracks.
The T is also doing preliminary design for a second phase of work that would add 12 more layover tracks and a train inspection pit. A third phase would build out more tracks on the rest of its Widett Circle property.