Re: New Brighton Landing | New Balance Complex
F-Line can you comment on the folowing from the NB document [my edit for formatting]
They'd have to re-study. 3 years was an eternity ego in the evolution of the CSX deal so a lot was unknowable in 2009 what kind of traffic flexibility the T would gain after the dispatching handover.
#1 - Worcester Yard doesn't have a locomotive maintenance facility like the one next to Storrow Dr., so the thinking at the time was that that part of the yard sandwiched between the tolls/Storrow/Doubletree would have to remain open indefinitely with them doing a limited amount of local freight unloading in the available space. Now it looks like they're going to pay P&W RR in Worcester rent to use their facility so they can completely vacate by mid-'13, and the daily afternoon round-trip down the Grand Junction will indeed be the only freight going east of Framingham.
#2 - Westborough transload yard was also being fought tooth and nail by NIMBY's, so if that was no-go there'd have to be a Plan B. That has finally been worked out.
#3 - They had a tightrope to walk on the land-taking and street grid impacts at Worcester Yard that could've gone either way. That's now worked in their favor, and the tracks themselves are almost complete because of the warm winter.
The T's still glossing over the fact that it really isn't knowable how much flex they'll gain until:
#1 - They actually have the dispatching in-hand and the freight's gone (fast approaching...international freight at Beacon Park gets diverted permanently to Worcester on April 1, so the great draw-down starts in earnest in less than 10 days).
#2 - They have reliable equipment. If their wheezing hulks of steel scrap metal keep breaking down at this rate, of course things aren't going to improve at all.
#3 - The signal system replacement Boston-Framingham. They are in such big trouble with compliance on the PTC mandate that sanctions are possible if they continue doing zilch planning--or even applying for signal grants--over the next 3 years renewing infrastructure that can't support the ACSES system (Framingham-Worcester is cab signaled and ready...that's maybe $3-5M tops for the PTC overlay). Worcester is an Amtrak route in the same cap improvements division as the NEC so that's...bad if Amtrak takes a hit on compliance. Ye Olde National Passenger RR Corp. is actually in pretty damn good shape for PTC relative to how daunting this mandate is and how remote some of those long-distance routes stretch. If T territory is the biggest compliance stinkbomb on their whole coast-to-coast system...there will be consequences for the local track owner.
-- #4 (related to signals). 60 MPH speed limits. Other than tight-spaced Fairmount and curvy/NIMBY-compromised Greenbush this is the slowest southside line of all, and it makes the Lake Shore Limited have one of the consistently worst on-time performances on all of Amtrak. The crickets are chirping on what anyone plans to do about this.
-- #5 the Newton stops and plans lackthereof to fix + 20 miles of ADA non-compliance and plans lackthereof to fix.
-- #6 South Station expansion, and their incredible shrinking interest in pursuing it. Fucking over Amtrak is not a good way to ensure future funding sources.
Of course money's an issue. But there are federal interests at stake with Amtrak, the PTC mandate, and ADA compliance which is going to get scrutinized if they plan to "double" service levels to those 7 consecutive non-compliant stations. This line is grouped on the fed HSR system map (even as a regular-speed route) because of NEC branchline status and the Amtrak plan to scale up to 10-per-day Inland Regionals via Hartford-Springfield-Worcester by 2025. Overlapping fed interests = significant fed funding attention. Possibly more total $$$ than the Downeaster when projected out as itty-bitty incremental appropriations spread over 10-15 years. If the T can't show on a napkin sketch what they propose doing about the Worcester Line's limitations and deferred maintenance, they have nothing to apply for on a grant application other than "dog ate homework". The pattern has been that passed-over grant apps for high priority routes get revisited on later rounds or in smaller-size appropriations with IOU's, like the Downeaster has incrementally earned. But you have to have something--anything--to say about the project's merits. Amtrak doesn't maintain this track like they do on the Providence Line. It can't be the initiating party.
Re: congestion with full service levels. . .overblown.
-- So many Worcester trains express through the Newton stops that I wouldn't expect very many existing runs to re-add them if they go 2-track. It's going to be the expansion schedule that does. The expansion schedule isn't knowable until all that maintenance crap has some conceptual path to completion.
-- The headways break out differently if a lot of the expansion runs are allotted to Framingham short-turns instead of inflexible end-to-end runs, so defaulting every calculation to Worcester isn't a useful metric. They have to study what's an appropriate % of the schedule to short-turn.
-- CSX isn't done revamping Eastern MA freight ops. Open question what the future of the Framingham yards are. They only use 2 of the 3 yards now. Do they even need 2 with Worcester the new base of ops, more of their branchline locals likely being deferred to the Grafton & Upton and MassCoastal shortlines, and Readville being another TBD on load balancing? If they slim back to 1 or 1-1/2 staffed yards, then there's very little daily freight that'll go east of Westborough let alone Framingham. More schedule slots available. But not knowable until ALL of the double-stack bridge raising work is complete, Beacon Park is totally abandoned, Worcester + Westborough are 100% cranking, G&U RR completes its track restoration to Milford and the outside world, and they have time to breathe and assess Framingham's and Readville's place in the pecking order.
-- They have to actually do the post-CSX construction work at Beacon Park to reconfigure the mainline switches and split off the Grand Junction direct off the main instead of snaking through the back of the yard. Everett St. to the Pike viaduct is 4 tracks on the mainline railbed, 2 of them to-be-depreciated yard leads that'll likely stay as misc. storage. Allston station platform probably cannibalizes 1 track but not both, so there'll be a pre-existing passing track for Worcester trains if they napkin-sketch the station with one. Not studied = not knowable.
So, yeah...they really need to crunch some numbers anew here. The whole Worcester Line's near-term future is fuzzy if they don't. And they really don't want to make Amtrak angry by flipping off the PTC mandate and pigeonholing themselves as the banana republic of east coast commuter rails. The overruns from their pyramid-building fetish at Yawkey, South Acton, Salem, and the GLX stations would pay for that whole LAW-MANDATED requirement
n times over.