Cape Cod Rail, Bridges and Highways

Re: Boston to Cape rail

Kudos to the CCRTA for thinking intermodal with this service. This article notes that Steamship Authority buses for Martha's Vineyard service will be coordinated with trains in Buzzards Bay. Parking at Steamship Authority lots in season is $10 or $12/day so for 3 days parking, your train ticket vs. parking is about the same. Not bad.
Also notes that the Enterprise Rental Car and CCRTA buses will serve Buzzards Bay station.

http://www.wickedlocal.com/bourne/f...-train-run-to-Hyannis-on-May-18#axzz2NzRkJt6y
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

Skimming back up, I'm curious if F-line could elaborate on that decision to tear up the track in Falmouth? If this project does succeed (which I hope it does), it seems to me that it would be much more convenient to run a line to Wood's Hole than have to transfer to a bus and then the ferry.

Doing some quick math, by the way:
Annual Costs: $180,000
Capacity: 1,200 passengers @$35/round trip (per their facebook page, which contradicts the $30 ticket mentioned earlier)
Weekly round trips: 3

A full train would earn $42,000, and if each day was sold out, that'd be $126,000 weekly (I'm not going to count the special schedules for Memorial, 4th, and Labor days). So, in theory, they could be running a profit in 2 weeks. However, I'm not inclined to think that the Friday Hyannis-Boston trip will sell out, and general caution dictates that you underestimate. So, lets just assume that they operate at 25% capacity, or $31,500 weekly. Thats just under 6 weeks before they're turning a profit. Or, to put it another way, they've got 15 weeks to earn their $180,000, so anything better than $12,000/week (342 round trip passengers) is profit.

It sounds pretty good. Then again, Amtrak manages to lose money on their food sales, so I won't put it past the state to mess this up. Hope they manage to prove me wrong, and, if we're really lucky, they can expand service and rebuild the falmouth line (a guy can hope).
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

DominusNovus said:
Skimming back up, I'm curious if F-line could elaborate on that decision to tear up the track in Falmouth? If this project does succeed (which I hope it does), it seems to me that it would be much more convenient to run a line to Wood's Hole than have to transfer to a bus and then the ferry.

Doing some quick math, by the way:
Annual Costs: $180,000
Capacity: 1,200 passengers @$35/round trip (per their facebook page, which contradicts the $30 ticket mentioned earlier)
Weekly round trips: 3

A full train would earn $42,000, and if each day was sold out, that'd be $126,000 weekly (I'm not going to count the special schedules for Memorial, 4th, and Labor days). So, in theory, they could be running a profit in 2 weeks. However, I'm not inclined to think that the Friday Hyannis-Boston trip will sell out, and general caution dictates that you underestimate. So, lets just assume that they operate at 25% capacity, or $31,500 weekly. Thats just under 6 weeks before they're turning a profit. Or, to put it another way, they've got 15 weeks to earn their $180,000, so anything better than $12,000/week (342 round trip passengers) is profit.

It sounds pretty good. Then again, Amtrak manages to lose money on their food sales, so I won't put it past the state to mess this up. Hope they manage to prove me wrong, and, if we're really lucky, they can expand service and rebuild the falmouth line (a guy can hope).
Click to expand...

Falmouth Branch was out-of-service past Otis AFB to Woods Hole since the late-80's. However, Cape Rail really wanted to restore passenger service, and not too much work would've been required. Pricey gov't grant even got applied to do a nice historical restoration on the Woods Hole station. Unfortunately the NIMBY's en route came out in force and had allies in the Legislature and with the trail lobby that wanted the Shining Sea Bikeway built instead. Some Legislator with a lot of pull rammed through a bill under the radar forcing MassDOT to pay their own way to rip up the rails. Then the bikeway got funded. That gorgeous Woods Hole station now sits in all its glory without tracks going anywhere near it.

This is how much of a dick move the NIMBY's pulled. There's a 1/3 mile rail-with-trail segment before the Otis Branch pulls away. Since it was a formerly double-track line there was ample room to build the path and keep the rails, separated by simple chain-link fence. You can see once the tracks were ripped out the paved path veers smack into the center of the ROW preventing re-laying of the tracks.


Frankly, it's not worth it. That Legislator who passed the 'spite bill' is still in power and still vehemently against rail to Falmouth. And the NIMBY's en route aren't worth dealing with for the much lesser ridership this branch would have vs. Hyannis. Especially since a teardown/rebuild of the trail with tracks would probably have to be some candy-coated yellow brick road with how much pork fishing they'd go for in such a build. It's landbanked and protected, but Falmouth's going to have to learn its congestion lesson the hard way and probably spend a couple decades begging "ME TOO!" once they see how big a boon this is going to be for Sandwich, Barnstable, Hyannis, and all other points with coordinated transfers.


Cape Cod Central does run occasional excursions down the branch. There's still a couple semi-useful places it could go, especially if the base were cleaned up and got some mixed-use development on its unused outskirts. But it's not nearly enough of a draw for state-run passenger service, so probably best that any future uses be left to CCCRR. If they took one of their operating Budd DMU's and ran just a single-car shuttle from Middleboro and Buzzards Bay to the branch + base that would cover it. Only 25 MPH passenger on the branch itself, but that's not bad for the short distance off the mainline; they wouldn't need to pour any money into it beyond catching up to state-of-good-repair for the existing Otis freight traffic.

And while there's not much freight at Otis right now other than the occasional plane de-icer tanker and military delivery there's spurs running all over the base and even a couple intermodal ramps. Big untapped potential here for truck intermodal and air freight intermodal if the military wanted to pocket some extra civilian revenue for shared use on their excess capacity.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

F-Line, thank you for that information. I'm curious as to which State Legislator was responsible; since you said that they're still in power, yet, from what I can tell, all three different legislators that represent Falmouth in any capacity have been elected fairly recently. The closest I can find is New Bedford's Senator that's been around since '93.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

DominusNovus said:
F-Line, thank you for that information. I'm curious as to which State Legislator was responsible; since you said that they're still in power, yet, from what I can tell, all three different legislators that represent Falmouth in any capacity have been elected fairly recently. The closest I can find is New Bedford's Senator that's been around since '93.
Click to expand...

Eric Turkington. I stand corrected...he opted against running for an 11th state House term and left office in '09. But that was the asshole who did it. It was in a rider buried deep inside an unrelated bill, which is how he got an unwilling MassDOT on the hook for the cost of rail removal.

He was noteworthy in his years on the Transportation Committee for pushing the Cape Flyover road proposal hard, so he had a porkful axe to grind on anything that would...you know...get more cars OFF the road. :rolleyes: Didn't moderate his position at all to the end: http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=541242#p541242.


Doesn't matter. The bike path had pretty lockstep support. They will pitch a fit about Hyannis' new toy all the same and demand their own trains plus a yellow brick road trail rebuild. And the state will be fully justified telling them to STFU and wait 40 years in the back of the line.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

F-Line to Dudley said:
Eric Turkington. I stand corrected...he opted against running for an 11th state House term and left office in '09. But that was the asshole who did it. It was in a rider buried deep inside an unrelated bill, which is how he got an unwilling MassDOT on the hook for the cost of rail removal.

He was noteworthy in his years on the Transportation Committee for pushing the Cape Flyover road proposal hard, so he had a porkful axe to grind on anything that would...you know...get more cars OFF the road. :rolleyes: Didn't moderate his position at all to the end: http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=541242#p541242.


Doesn't matter. The bike path had pretty lockstep support. They will pitch a fit about Hyannis' new toy all the same and demand their own trains plus a yellow brick road trail rebuild. And the state will be fully justified telling them to STFU and wait 40 years in the back of the line.
Click to expand...

Aha. Well, at the very least, he's not there anymore. But I can't be too outraged at the people of Falmouth themselves. This isn't a grudge match; its a commonwealth.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

Actually, observing people's behavior in this state, I think it is a grudge match.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

Wondering why they're doing a Friday evening return trip to Boston, instead of a Monday morning trip.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

That's a valid point, except that there is no Sunday evening return trip to the Cape.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

The way they show the schedule on the website isn't exactly intuitive, but here is what it breaks down to:

Fridays:
Leave Boston 5:12 p.m., arrive Hyannis 7:50 p.m.
Leave Hyannis 8:30 p.m., arrive Boston 10:45 p.m.

Saturdays and Sundays:
Leave Boston 8:00 a.m., arrive Hyannis 10:18 a.m.
Leave Hyannis 6:30 p.m., arrive Boston 8:45 p.m.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

Right, but I don't see the logic of having that Cape-to-Boston trip on Friday evening, unless it's going to be paired with a Boston-to-Cape trip on Saturday and Sunday evenings.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

Ron Newman said:
Right, but I don't see the logic of having that Cape-to-Boston trip on Friday evening, unless it's going to be paired with a Boston-to-Cape trip on Saturday and Sunday evenings.
Click to expand...

With the expected trip time coming out at 2 hours and change, perhaps the theory is that Cape residents returning from Boston will board the morning train the next day rather than wanting to deal with a late night Hyannis arrival.

That's not a particularly good explanation, mind you, but it's the only one that I've got.

I'm loathe to start ripping apart the service, since managing to get rail to the Cape at all is a significant achievement - but really, the more I look at the "weekend excursion" setup, the less I like it. For a 1xDaily setup to work well, it needs to be 1xDaily - not "weekends only." I think it would have been better served as 1 round-trip Friday, 2 round-trips Saturday, 2 round-trips Sunday, 1 round-trip Monday.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

that friday night 5:12 out of boston alone I think will make this profitable. Imagine going to work during the day, the family gets on the road mid day beats the traffic. You spend 2 hours getting sloshed on the train passing traffic that Boston-Hyannis would easily be 2.5 on a nice friday evening and get picked up at the station, or continue on to nantucket or the vineyard.

It will also work well for people that fly in for rentals on the islands. Those go saturday to saturday and now you have a very easy carless way to get there.

Also, there is a huge contingent of people that have friends with cape houses and would love to visit for the night but dont want to drive (this is where i fall). The train will be a huge hit.

If demand is proven, they have an easy rationale justifying a 2nd round trip on sat/sun and a monday return. If not, they don't have to listen to fox news facebook posts about how they can't do anything right and that only idiots ride trains
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

Also, there is a huge contingent of people that have friends with cape houses and would love to visit for the night but dont want to drive (this is where i fall).

Are there car rental places within a reasonable walk of the Hyannis station?
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

Ron Newman said:
Right, but I don't see the logic of having that Cape-to-Boston trip on Friday evening, unless it's going to be paired with a Boston-to-Cape trip on Saturday and Sunday evenings.
Click to expand...

Well, when does the train get back to Boston? It has to be ready to go back down to the Cape for 8am Saturday morning. Unless they're going to start running 2 trains (and where does the first train go?), I can't think of another solution.

If they do run 2 trains, then the Friday train could head back on monday morning.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

Ron Newman said:
Also, there is a huge contingent of people that have friends with cape houses and would love to visit for the night but dont want to drive (this is where i fall).

Are there car rental places within a reasonable walk of the Hyannis station?
Click to expand...

Yes. There's a full contingent of rental car places at the airport...Hertz, Avis, Thrifty, etc. Station at Hyannis Transportation Center is only 3 blocks from the terminal building, so anyone would be able to walk over and pick up the rental car shuttle at the terminal to take you over to the lots by the 28/132 rotary on the other side of the airport.

Ferry terminal's 2 blocks in the other direction. And all the buses are being coordinated around the train schedule. You really could do a car-free or local rental-only weekend the way the options are all centralized around the Trans. Center. The only critical thing Hyannis lacks right now is a Zipcar location.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

Ron Newman said:
Right, but I don't see the logic of having that Cape-to-Boston trip on Friday evening, unless it's going to be paired with a Boston-to-Cape trip on Saturday and Sunday evenings.
Click to expand...

The only reason the train runs from the Cape to Boston on Friday night is because it has to be brought back to Southampton for the night. That's it. If it's not in service, it's making 0$ instead perhaps a few hundred (tops, but hey, better than nothing!).
 
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