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Well, I guess this is the other shoe dropping regarding the Newtonville platform length news. It's good to see the MBTA looking at :30 service on the Worcester Line (though it's not clear to me exactly what that means in terms of the multiple service patterns that already exist on the line)...

Eng did say this: https://commonwealthbeacon.org/transportation/eng-says-mbta-becoming-more-and-more-reliable/

It's tough when even the guy in favor of the NSRL can only articulate secondary benefits of the project (e.g. Salem-to-South Shore travel) and not the main purpose of it (speed & frequency of service).

Feds Commit More Funding For Springfield Passenger Rail Improvements

It's seemed to me for a while now that the only way forward, politically speaking, is to find a way to get a short extension to Nashua done. Once it's real, in New Hampshire, and gains popularity, it may be possible to get the political capital for an extension to Manchester.

According to the MBTA speed restrictions tracker, six restrictions between Community and Sullivan have been lifted, including a few at the stations themselves. The Orange Line is now slow-zone free between Community College and Mass Ave. This is showing up in TransitMatters data tool as well...

The MBTA's slow zone tracker indicates that as of yesterday, eight slow zones on the Red Line have been removed. Essentially, every speed restriction between Park and Andrew has been removed. There are still speed restrictions between Andrew and JFK/UMass, but this segment of track is also...

Somewhere along the line, I came under the impression that the turning radius at the Heath St curve is too tight for the Type 10s. Is my impression wrong?

The core Red Line closure was previously announced, but the post-8:45pm closure from JFK-Ashmont is new. Any theories as to what that's about? There hadn't been any scheduled work for the Ashmont Branch, since the October 2023 shutdown removed all slow zones. For the Orange Line, the May 28 -...

In theory we can walk and chew gum at the same time, but shouldn't there be an ungodly number of Inland Route frequencies before we consider anything close to eight daily round trips between Boston and Albany?

This grant has been awarded to MassDOT.

A few tidbits regarding the upcoming bus redesign. The greater weekend service sounds promising. MBTA Head: New Bus Map Gives 25 Percent More Service

This is my experience as a fellow frequent rider, too. I can't find it to dig it up right now, but I've seen data on Twitter that suggests that around 22-24% of the OL service is provided by new trains. Lately there are usually three new trains in service at any time, so I guess the...

Transportation emissions are the single largest source of carbon emissions in the US, so investments that increase the mode-share of rail travel and incentivize land use policy to produce more transit-oriented jobs and housing and more walkable environments that would further reduce the...

Four new trains are in revenue service on the Orange Line this morning.

There were three new OL trains running early this morning, but now we're down to two. Based on anecdotal reports on Twitter, it seems like one of the new ones was taken out of service due to mechanical problems. This jibes with what I saw approaching Oak Grove, where we passed a new OL train...

The ghost of Frank DePaola is posting in this very thread!

The NH route is a quixotic plan because the level of investment to get it started would be very high. The trackage past Boscawen no longer exists, and even if you entirely rebuilt the line it wouldn't be very fast because the ROW is very curvy. Boston-Montreal isn't a good enough route to...

This is very much the wrong way to think about a Boston-Montreal train via Springfield — or via NH (where the directness of the route would be offset by the slowness of the ROW). Some people would take the full length of the train from Boston to Montreal, but if that seems like a weak market to...