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Norfolk Southern double-stack intermodal service started yesterday from Chicago-Binghamton-Ayer via the B&A + Worcester Branch routing. That was a competitive concession to NS in CSX's acquisition of Pan Am, following completion of a year's worth of construction for vertical clearance...

It's doable but very very expensive. If you're distending the downgrade further north towards Sweetser you most likely have to relocate the crossover switches for Everett Jct. which need to be on level ground because of unbalanced-load freight cars going to the big scrap recycler at Everett...

Any one of the siting alternatives is going to be extremely pricey. At Encore-proper has the steep grade that has to be flattened out and distended with fill, which is going to make maintaining service during construction way harder and more expensive and also breach thorny questions about...

There's no street access behind the MBTA shops unless you do an extremely roundabout walk that begins/ends practically either at the original Encore or Sweetser station sites, and it would require Everett Jct. to be completely relocated at $$$ because you can't have switches in the middle of a...

It's a 3% grade coming off the Mystic Bridge, steepest on the whole CR system. You can only legally have a 2.08% maximum platform grade under the ADA, so the real-world conditions are off by 1% on what's legally permissible. To make it work you'd have to pay extra to flatten a long stretch of...

NETransit rosters updated for New Year's... The last Orange pair was finally delivered in December. 144 cars, 4 in testing, 4 out-of-service awaiting repair for derailment damage. Red's up to 52 cars, 6 in-testing. The December pair delivery is still listed on the site as "planned", so it's...

Go Boston 2030's action plan also proposed in tandem an express bus layer on the Washington bus lanes to speed travel times to Rozzie Square, as a lower-reach prerequisite that predates the OL extension. With those services pre-existing, you could basically optimize the bus lanes to function as...

They have enough accepted cars for 8 sets, but for the longest time the warranty repair backlog meant that actual running numbers were minus 1-2 sets off the "active" rostered availability. If it's now averaging minus 3-4 sets off rostered availability then we're seeing some noticeable slippage...

Quincy would need about 100 to maintain existing service with BEB's. The rest of the space is for service expansion. The T's still got 340 un-exercised options on the 40-footer BEB contract, most of which are earmarked to populate the new Arborway and Medford garages but which at least 100...

It was listed in the Go Boston 2030 action plan from the City a few years ago, so has been politically percolating at the local level since the Walsh Administration.

Wabtec bought GE's locomotive division, which made the prime mover and a bunch of other components for the HSP's, so they're a logical choice to work on those unicorns when nobody else (including original builder MPI, who do a healthy amount of business on overhauls) would touch them with a...

https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/2025-12/2025-12-18-board-meeting-battery-electric-buses_0.pdf T executes a +40 unit option order on their New Flyer BEB contract to flesh out new Quincy garage to 88 total buses. They will probably need to exercise another option later on to pad out the...

https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/2025-12/2025-12-18-board-meeting-motivepower-locomotives.pdf HSP-46 midlife overhaul contract awarded to Wabtec. $253M for the 40 locos, program begins in 2029 and ends in 2032.

"D1" and "D2" would probably be more logical for wayfinding, since the inner 9 stops on the Highland Branch would be the same on any schedule.

Eh...it's a 3-track graded ROW between Forest Hills Yard and Rozzie, so that sharply limits the blowout potential. If it's Orange +1 outright eating the Rozzie CR stop, the only extraneous expenses you're incurring are: Adding a new CR passing track between 2 of the other neighborhood CR stops...

You could keep a 6-minute thru frequency on the Highland Branch all-day, fork it in half past Newton Highlands for 12-minute thru frequencies each to Riverside and Needham Jct., then supplement both branches at all peak times with Kenmore short-turns to bring it back to 6-min. overall...

BAT buses across the street from Brockton station depart every :30 on the :30/:00 at peak with only a couple schedule outliers for longer routes, so for getting around the city with transfers 6-minute Red Line branch frequencies are somewhat wasted because you'll be laying over for a few Red...

This thing got some use out in the field today on a joint MBTA-NNEPRA office car special trip to Portland, with the cranberry-scheme GP40 leading. They wyed it in Portland for the return trip.

Malden Center serves 12 bus routes that collectively slug over 20,000 daily Blue Book boardings. You hurt a lot of transit users by halving frequencies to MC and wrecking their 2-seat trips. It is absolutely the greater harm to consign those transferees to 9-minute peak frequencies forever...

From an RR.net spotter...the former South Sudbury diamond has been put back in on display at the intersection of the Mass Central and Bruce Freeman trails: