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Whoa! I just got hit with some major deja vu. Hypersensitive labs, you say?

The Worcester Line is also a redundancy for the NEC if you're looking at this from the scope of "between Boston and NY" or "Boston and New Haven" or even "Between Boston and New London" and were anything to happen to the NEC with Fairmount unavailable it'd be less of a crisis then when bad...

I went back and looked at a Fairmount-Red Connection more closely. Assuming that the Red Line rolling stock can handle 2% grade sustained over 1000 feet, there's more then enough wiggle room to sever Fairmount just north of the overpass at I-93 and get it underground without fouling up...

I don't buy that MassDOT has zero interest in how the Downeaster makes it through MA en route to NYC beyond what it's going to cost them/us particularly considering that MassDOT has a tremendous interest in serving MA passengers and is almost certainly going to be more engaged in the routing...

I'll buy Inland Route service to North Station in the absence of the Link and because Amtrak already has operations there - but I'm not seeing what Amtrak actually gains from operating Downeaster service to NYC via Boston. The fact that it Boston-Grand Junction introduces an end change and...

I haven't done the math and don't have all of the relevant figures to assert what the exact capacity of the Grand Junction is. 4 TPH was a guess. Most of its grade crossings are over critical streets, double tracking it requires enough additional real estate in Cambridge that I'm hesitant to...

Why not just call it Beacon Park, then?

I disagree with the assessment as far as Dedham and Norwood are concerned. Between Norwood and Foxboro there's a whole lot of nothing, but sending them through to Foxboro is more of a matter of scheduling convenience relative to trying to turn trains on a regular basis in Norwood Central. All...

EDIT: On second thought, the original version of this post was probably a bit too much and I apologize for letting my anger get the better of me. The general gist of what was here is that we don't have to choose between tossing what are (for the most part in the context of an interstate rather...

From what I heard, actually, it's Comcast (and Comcast making deals with politicians) that is/was keeping them out and they are doing so on a statewide level. FIOS is gleefully expanding in your southern neighbor states. In fact, FIOS was just recently extended to my neighborhood a month or so...

My presumption of 2030 levels is certainly much different than yours is, and if that report is anything to go off of, what the MBTA's is. My presumption of "2030 Service Levels" is 16 Peak TPH on the Fairmount Line (8 xMUs for Westwood/128, 4 xMUs for Foxboro, 2 hybrid-consist TPH for...

I'm dubious about the concept of expressing through any of the Fairmount Line stations if we're figuring 4 tph for the full-build Fairmount Line. Exactly how many tph do you expect the Fairmount Line to be serving?

Plenty of the CR network is indeed single tracked - including the entirety of the Franklin Line south of Norwood Central. The first passing siding on the line heading outbound from Norwood Central is on the "wrong" side of the Walpole junction (relative to Foxboro) and there are no passing...

Theoretically speaking, what are the actual barriers to double-tracking the Foxboro Branch and establishing regular commuter rail service on it?

Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade I'm assuming that Avon falls under the 'heavy protest' category because its non-inclusion is frankly bizarre. Well, except for a Franklin Line branch extension to Blackstone, which would require Blackstone, Millville, and Mendon to enter the district. This is why...

Providence's interests, Cranston's interests, and Warwick's interests are served by having rapid transit running on this line and even if you remove 100% of Amtrak's traffic and turn the line over to RIDOT's exclusive control tomorrow you can't squeeze the kind of stop density needed here onto 3...

I'll agree that it's a lot of bridge work. I won't agree that it's a lot of property taking (I probably shouldn't have used the numbered list) when it's four actual properties that need to be taken (two of which are probably being taken regardless of a fourth track if I've got the location of...

That Mansfield and Sharon are only receiving three tracks means they lowballed estimation of the capacity needed between Attleboro and Canton Junction, not that four tracks between Providence and Warwick is an over-estimate. Mansfield and Sharon need a fourth track too, especially if express...

Re: Fairmont Line Upgrade State borders are not arbitrary lines on a map. Wickford Junction is an arbitrary line on a map. Middleborough is an arbitrary line on a map. Most of where DMU service is set to 'stop' is completely arbitrary. Why here? Why these terminals? That question hasn't been...

Bridges that would need to be destroyed:Coronado Road overpass. RI-37 extended offramps to Post Road/US-1. Necessary destruction as part of an unrelated medium-term project anyway (reconfiguring the ungodly mess of the RI-37 terminus) and therefore net-neutral with regards to quad-tracking...