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No, I mean, I do think each of your individual points is valid on its own. But the overall vibe just... doesn't seem right to me. And the most succinct way I could immediately think of to express this feeling of weirdness is that, most of them apply equally well to BLX-Lynn vs. RR-Beverly, but...

Funny enough, your mention of 12 tph and Elizabeth Line etc. reminded me of another point. Let's assume 4-track NSRL, and divide the 4 tracks into 2 pairs: "West Tunnel": Lines going west through Back Bay, including NEC and Worcester. "East Tunnel": Lines going south through South Bay Portal...

I did examine assumptions (a) and (b). While I broadly agree with your choice of infills, I have major doubts over (b) as there doesn't seem to be cases where half-length platforms are feasible but full-length ones are not. #4: High-frequency service to Norwood? Unlike the 3 earlier points...

#2: Where to send NEC slots: Franklin, or Providence/Stoughton/SCR? While I understand that @TheRatmeister's comment primarily focuses on impacts on Fairmount Line, the question of "Franklin-via-NEC vs. Franklin-via-Fairmount" is incomplete without considering this half of the picture. Here...

I'll explain this in a few different angles from what @F-Line to Dudley did (not all of which I agree, as alluded in the specifics below): Most of your points are not saying "Franklin Line should not run via Fairmount", but rather, "Fairmount Line should not have been Regional Rail in an ideal...

Regardless of which MBTA bus uses West Station, shouldn't there be at least one actual, functional, high-frequency bus connection from West Station to the extremely dense nearby neighborhoods, even if it's not the 64 or 66? Most likely, West Station (and Boston Landing) will be the "pseudo...

Can't exactly tell if this is sarcasm (though I do think there is some merit in here), but I'll just raise a single point in objection. Under the vast majority of fan-made Regional Rail proposals, Lynn and Salem will get 15-min frequencies or better. (Those who religiously follow the "15-min...

I'm very happy with the changes, especially given that Everett, Chelsea and Revere are among the most underserved communities by transit today (especially Everett), and given that I personally think of the 104 as one of the best and most unique proposals in the entire BNRD. A few things do...

To be fair, the standards for building new infrastructure now are much higher than they were 100 years ago. Consider our recent discussion here about Eastern Route through the wetlands: the general consensus was that if the railroad was built today, the whole ROW would have been a viaduct. But...

On the other hand, here's a much more optimistic snippet, just 2 paragraphs into the article: The rest of the article is primarily about future challenges in maintaining this headcount, not about getting there by 2024.

Tangentially related to the topic: How easy is it to quad-track the Eastern Route through the marshlands south of Point of Pines for BLX to Lynn? I've seen people saying that expanding the ROW through the marshlands would result in cost blowouts or even make BLX infeasible altogether (although I...

Not only is the Northern Tier study still alive, apparently it got strong local support during the meeting: https://www.iberkshires.com/story/74921/Northern-Tier-Rail-Gets-Strong-Support-at-Hearing.html

Taking an express bus along the 450 route is actually faster than transferring to the Blue Line at Wonderland, though. Likewise, in various other cities where agencies are cutting express buses, they are often met with complaints from riders, and for good reason. The only way for truncation of...

Perhaps a Crazy Transit Pitch, based on @F-Line to Dudley's post with planned station layouts: Is there a way to flip the local and express tracks north of Route 128, such that outer tracks are express and inner tracks are local, as opposed to the more typical setup south of Route 128? Since...

Orange Line is running 14 trains today: https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/s/Vpfgidqud6

Can you elaborate on where the 8' comes from? If you're referring to the gap between tracks, it seems that the wall separating OL and CR tracks still needs to be moved. So at the very least, that's more work to redo the plaza. I'm not sure if the walls extend all the way into the station, which...

A few miscellaneous thoughts: Regarding the question of running Franklin-via-NEC, while you're right that NEC's capacity will hopefully not be an issue (though that's only possible without a Franklin flat junction), there's another reason why it may hurt: Every Franklin-Ruggles train means the...

Are you using an older schedule for this? Because I just checked the schedule for April 1, and counted: Providence/Stoughton Line: 11 inbound, 19 outbound Franklin/Foxboro Line: 9 outbound, 0 inbound Fairmount Line: 25 in both directions Granted, it's still a big difference inbound. I'm also...

Adding a point that I can't fit into the original comment due to character counts: The NEC trip count of 18224 may be an overestimate, as many destinations, especially West Roxbury/Roslindale, assume trains stopping at Forest Hills. In practice, the commuter rail station doesn't have room for...

The elephant in the room: On the surface, Hyde Park station is very close to Fairmount station. In a world where Hyde Park is closed, it can still be claimed that the neighborhood sees high frequency regional rail via Fairmount. This in turns presents an even stronger argument for closing Hyde...