Search results

Mystic pretty much has to move. The platforms are on a sharp curve, and M8 EMU's can't board at any full-highs with curvature because their quarter-point doors will open up a pronounced 'gap'. There's pretty much no place to move the station and keep it centered on Broadway Ave. Ext. because...

NECR's mainline is already Class 3. And most of the rail and ties just got replaced in a big state-paid grant project to uprate the loading weight to Port of New London, so it's maximally good-condition Class 3 track. With almost entirely up-to-spec gated grade crossings, so not much needed...

They have plenty of specific excuses for preferring discontinuous electrification on the Fairmount Line. It's one of the most clearance-restricted corridors on the system, meaning that some of the bridges will have to be undercut to maintain existing Plate C (i.e. the size of a T bi-level)...

If this were going to attract many riders from the suburbs, the one-seat to Riverside option that was discarded early due to lack of ridership...wouldn't have been discarded due to lack of ridership. And the 2012 study for Framingham/Worcester directs wouldn't have gotten a not-recommended...

You'd need a shuttle bus any which way. The Minuteman ROW is almost 2 miles up Hartwell from Hanscom's terminal. It's not exactly rail to the airport's doorstep.

It's alright. The costs for the inland sojourn are thoroughly sandbagged. They made Westerly look like a bargain compared to Norwich...$243M vs. $635M, and more ridership to Westerly to boot.

Not electrification per se. CSX was opposed to absolute traffic separation (as in: splitting the baby so CSX sticks to its track 100% of the time, Amtrak/VRE stick to their tracks 100% of the time). That renders short-term electrification impractical because those track-sharing flex slots...

36 MPH in a 10 MPH zone and blew a double-red (absolute stop at interlocking) signal, which meant the switch didn't have enough time to reset itself before the train was passing over it. Total operator error/indifference. Yup...we can't go without a speed-and-stop enforcement enforcement...

D.C.-Richmond electrification isn't yet in the cards, so the Acelas won't be reaching south of D.C. anytime foreseeable. It's a major CSX double-stack freight corridor between the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, and while the tri-track expansion planned in Virginia is largely going to segregate the...

You'd have to find a manufacturer datasheet that breaks it down by gearing. Stadler and CAF (for the Talent) only provide the maxes, which isn't all that instructive when most Commuter/Regional Rail acceleration is in the lower gears. Rotem did provide the gearing ranges for the Silverliner.

What's the range for starting acceleration, though? Those quoted figures for Stadler were just the top-gear maxes. 0-30 MPH is where the most time gets chewed up, especially on a stop-dense line like Fairmount. That's where the Silverliner V's gearing example was far and away most gentle...

It would be a return to the paleolithic-era MBTA district, where communities outside of slightly beyond Route 128 had to self-subsidize their commuter rail stops. In the 1960's and 1970's you had pretty much YEARLY schedule changes with dropped or re-picked-up stops, service truncations and...

Stadler's commuter-class EMU's do 0.8 m/s² empty and their intercity-class EMU's do 1.3 m/s² empty. So it's about an 0.5 m/s² difference before the G-forces become too uncomfortable for commuter livery with standees. I don't know how acceleration is figured using passenger loading weight...

Commuter-class EMU's have no issues with using full acceleration. Intercity-class EMU's with brawnier acceleration, however, pretty much require you to have intercity livery (well-cushioned seats, no standees) to not allow it to be a rider comfort issue. The fatal flaw with all of...

Yes. That's exactly what's going to happen if you insist on a Back Bay Big Dig...it crashes to the bottom of the priority pile. Nothing gets built because you went too perfect-is-the-enemy-of-good. The only reason BLX-Kenmore via Storrow looks tasty is because it would be so inexpensive for...

Muller also talked at length about the need for faster starts/stops on a line like Fairmount so the schedule starts to become more subway-like. Well...BEMU's don't accelerate that great vs. straight-EMU's because of all the battery deadweight they're carrying around and the acceleration-sapping...

Most of the interview was very good. Muller is a full-throated backer of :30 Regional Rail systemwide and making aggressive strides towards achieving that. Since he (and that whole podcast) are an in-house mouthpiece for the T, it signals that institutionally they are buying into the Rail...

Unsignaled lines without Positive Train Control are limited to 4 round trips/8 track-occupancy movements daily, so 3 Amtrak RT's + 1 flex-slot RT for the freight or excursions or maintenance trains are the traffic limit for the line. Doesn't really make a difference if it's day or...

No, he really didn't. He complained that it would cost too many billions and take too many decades to electrify with catenary, but cited discontinuous electrification as some great cost and time saver because "Progress!" when that's been thoroughly debunked. When the facts say that the...

The best way to minimize the disruptions is to fully fund the southside maintenance facility at Readville so construction on that can get expedited. Get southside equipment serviced down south, and you don't need to shuffle cars north and south every single day. Amtrak swaps Downeaster sets...