Re: Boston to Cape rail
I'm wondering if the Cape Rail can be used to justify beach trains north of Newburyport. If you plop in cheap stations at Salisbury, Hampton, and Portsmouth, then you're all set. You can run buses out of Salisbury and Hampton to the beaches, and it could be a hit. Traffic isn't nearly as bad, but if you can get a decent ride at a regular fare structure, plus a cheap bus to the beach, scheduled to meet trains, then it could work well. It would be awesome for phasing in year-round commuter rail to Portsmouth, and I think the summer months would make up for the year-round expenses.
The only problem is the bridge over the Merimac, plus the NIMBY's keep trying to trail up the whole thing. How much is the bridge pegged at, again? It's a big hurdle, but it's essentially all that's in the way. Also, can you do rail-with-trail? I imagine double tracking between Ipswich and Newburyport would allow for single track north of Newburyport. Maybe a siding or two somewhere. You can't put the trail within Seabrook Nuclear Plant's outer perimeter, anyway. Good spot for a passing siding.
Given that it would be a two-state project--and the other state is planning back-asswards NH--I wouldn't hold my breath on this one. You have dumber-than-rocks Legislators right now pushing proposals to pave over the recently-abandoned Hampton Branch is Hampton for a 2-lane commercial access road to relive Route 1A congestion:
http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130521/NEWS/305210332/-1/NEWSMAP. Right now it's a knife fight between local residents and their own pols against that inanity.
While the Seacoast wants commuter rail worse than every other region of Southern NH, this is indicative of the uphill climb they face against the transit cro-magnons amongst them. I really don't think it's going to become MA's concern for a couple decades more at least. The T is treating it correctly on the Western Route and Capitol Corridor...fight tooth-and-nail to get to the border because that's an in-district T concern, and de-couple as much as possible from the riff-raff that lies beyond until they feel like cooperating. Unfortunately, the Eastern Route just doesn't have on-border density like Plaistow park-and-ride and downtown Nashua. The ROW spends most of its time in the marsh in Salisbury, and any turnback stops there or in Seabrook would have very diffuse ridership. It's not worth it until it goes all the way back to Portsmouth.
The NIMBY's did screw it up bigtime when the downtown Newburyport stop got spiked for the park-and-ride. Ridership isn't anywhere near what it should be because they skipped all the density. However, the trail doesn't prevent full restoration. It just means it's going to have to be single-track. That's not a big deal...quite unlikely a restored Portsmouth run is going to need more than single + passing sidings north of the current terminal. Still can't see Newburyport reversing its opposition to a downtown stop, though. Or the T needing to care until Portsmouth and NH are on the table. That ship sailed 15 years ago, much like it did with Plymouth/Cordage Park.
The Newburyport Branch does need better frequencies, and that's not happening until the mainline constraints (Salem Station single platform, Chelsea crossings, falling-apart bridges) get some TLC and North Beverly-Ipswich gets double-tracking. It's nice fast straight 80 MPH track on the branch once you get to North Beverly. The speediness gives this branch a higher ridership ceiling than curvier, grade crossing-littered Rockport if they can take care of the problem of simply getting to Beverly on the mainline in reasonable time. It's got very high growth potential even if it never ends up crossing the river again.
BTW...the T will have options for more 'beach' cars when the bi-level coach order is done. The initial order of 75 Rotems displaces the MBB single-levels that are in such corroded body frame condition they head straight to the scrapper without a thought of refurbishment. But the escalator order for +75 more (which is looking more like a formality now that these things are successfully operating) lets them start picking and choosing which of the worn but considerably better-condition Bombardier singles to dispense of. And since only half of them would go that gives them lots of options to set aside coaches that would otherwise be scrapped for almost-free repurposement as specialty cars. Meaning, lots more potential bike/ski cars and a few more snack bar cars. Just involves ripping out some seats and installing racks and/or a snack table, which they know how to do DIY in the shops. And the things would only run on in-season weekends so they wouldn't rack up enough miles to need long-term maintenance.
It's entirely possible that in 3 years there'll be bike cars all over the system going to Newburyport, Rockport, Kingston/Plymouth, and the Cape on weekends. Cape Flyer is proving that the 'beach weekend' gimmick works great when you advertise it, and if the equipment costs are nearly free why not work that gimmick to the limit tapping new sources of weekend ridership?
