Search results

New Bedford Light December 18 article. Signs suggest South Coast Rail is boosting tourism, development The extension has brought more visitors, and it seems to be attracting more developers to build here. "...As 2026 approaches, the MBTA’s Fall River/New Bedford Line is about to enter its 10th...

For some reason this building reminds me of Ideal's Super City building sets of the late 1960s. Not a criticism--I like the look. This brings back happy childhood memories of my Super City set.

Huh. I got the the exact opposite impression reading the CommonWealth Beacon article, most notably from these paragraphs: It sounds like Eng has been building a very competent management team. Coholan, for one, is very competent and diligent. I have been aware of his career progression...

It's interesting the 2024 ADB show a dip in June and July, while the 2025 data, not so much. I would expect a summer dip, with universities largely out of session and summer vacations. I'm curious what drove the 2025 average daily boardings to reflect much less seasonal variation.

Buzzards Bay isn't a town (it's a village in the town of Bourne), but its development was largely due to the railroad. The Cape Cod Branch Railroad between Middleboro and Sandwich crossed Cohasset Narrows here in 1848. At the time, there only a handful of buildings here, and the Sandwich glass...

This would be at the Cape side of the Bourne Bridge, by the rotary, likely organized by the United Cape Patriots, an ultra right-wing group. That has been their favorite public perch for years. While southern Plymouth County and the Cape does tend to run more conservative, the Patriots group...

"Not enough bang for the buck to make it financially feasible at the time" aptly describes why a direct rail route was not completed directly connecting Providence, Fall River, New Bedford and the Cape. Regarding Fall River, the 1875 Slade's Ferry bridge over the Taunton River did provide a...

The federal government looked at this at the time they purchased the canal in the late 1920s. The feds knew the canal needed to be widened from its then 100-foot canal. They went high-level with the two 1930s highway bridges, but quickly realized a movable span would be required for rail. A...

What should be a reasonable proposal: A seasonal Providence - Hyannis service in the spirit of today's Boston - Hyannis CapeFLYER service. Connecting with Amtrak and MBTA commuter rail at Providence station, the train would follow the Northeast Corridor to Attleboro, where it would turn onto...

This past Tuesday the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Transportation held a public hearing on several pending bills this session, including House Bill 3654 and Senate Bill 2394, both titled “An Act relative to restoring commuter rail to Cape Cod” . The Senate bill is a watered down version of...

SCR phase 2 is nowhere on the state's radar. There's no organized group advocating for it. Don't expect the state to be protecting the potential right-of-way for this route, sadly. At least the Quincy-Dorchester Old Colony main bottleneck has received a slight bit of state attention. That...

Spot checking a handful of New Haven Railroad employee timetables from the 1940s into the mid 1950s, it becomes obvious the top speed on the Berkshire line was 50 m.p.h. back in the "good old days." That, with 41 to 42 permanent speed restrictions along the route between S.S. 44 in South...

Sorry I missed this post a month ago. While Old King's Highway (Route 6A) is a busy road with bicyclists and pedestrians, the speed limit is as high as 45 m.p.h. in many sections, including Sandwich and Barnstable. Meanwhile, the CapeFLYER is restricted to 30 m.p.h. on the Cape, including long...

Oh, I remember that banality well. I worked at 101 Huntington in the 1980s. It really wasn't that bad -- in some corridors the ceiling panels were painted orange. Another memory: Scenes from Spenser: For Hire were filmed at 101. One afternoon I and others looked out the 6th floor windows to...

I understand the American Institute of Architects' 2025 conference is underway in the Seaport district. As part of the press leading up to the conference, Architectural Record magazine ran this June 3rd article, highlighting South Station's new concourse. The article is paywalled, but the...

The New Bedford Light published a May 12th opinion piece on the proposed hotel and its uninspired design. Fair use quotes: "Opinion: A new hotel, great! But, looking like this? "A proposed hotel near the new train station should underscore New Bedford’s rich, architectural history – not look...

Direct link to the MBTA's ferry names contest. And the full text (since it's an MBTA press release and not a newspaper article, fair use rules do not apply): MBTA Opens Contest for Students K-8 to Help Name Three Ferries Posted on April 10, 2025 The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is...

Fair use quotes from the Fall River Herald News article: "Key Points -- Staffing shortages caused multiple MBTA trains to and from the SouthCoast to be canceled. -- Riders in Boston trying to head home faced delays of about 4 hours. -- Service alerts show many trains on the newly opened South...

A year ago, Ratmeister posted an image of the MBTA commuter rail map with South Coast Rail posted at Ruggles. Several commented on the Ruggles map. I noted a couple of days later -- The CapeFlyer service east of Middleborough should be labeled by it's name "CapeFlyer" and not just "Hyannis...

It was never quad track through Quincy into Braintree. The quad track ended just south of Atlantic station in the very northern portion of Quincy, where the Granite branch split off. Below that the Quincy - Braintree main was double track. Now whether the New Haven ever owned a right-of-way...