Commuter Rail to New Hampshire?

[themissinglink]

On proposed speeds, that's roughly in line with historical bests from when the physical plant was last maintained top-flight. The meander of the Merrimack River's banks all points north of Lowell keeps you sufficiently below the 79 MPH max speed for Class 4 track, except for a couple decent-length straightaways Nashua-Merrimack and Merrimack-Bedford shown here.

If there was to ever be intercity Amtrak service on the Capitol Corridor, would there be any possibility of increasing speeds past 79 MPH to 90 MPH or even 110 MPH? (Specifically between Nashua, Merrimack, and Bedford like you mentioned)

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

If there was to ever be intercity Amtrak service on the Capitol Corridor, would there be any possibility of increasing speeds past 79 MPH to 90 MPH or even 110 MPH? (Specifically between Nashua, Merrimack, and Bedford like you mentioned)

Not north-of-Lowell, no. The ROW is bolted to the Merrimack in a neverending sine wave that Google shows distinctly enough. It's still pretty zippy because it was engineered from Day 1 to be zippy, but the curvature is a little bit short of a high-speed corridor.

South-of-Lowell...yes, if something on the schedule super-expressed to take advantage of the skip-stoppage. You could definitely do >80 on some of Somerville-Anderson where the Downeaster doubles up, and probably also part of the Wilmington-Billerica stretch. For that you'd need to consider some of the Concord proposals' pitches for a layered service of all-MA-stop locals terminating in Nashua + all-NH-stop locals running as an express layer stopping only in Lowell & Anderson after crossing the state line. Most of the line is still going to be governed by significant wetlands-induced curves in Medford (Mystic Lakes), Woburn, and North Billerica at no better than today...and the locals don't have the stop spacing to take advantage in the in-between spots...but if you do super-express layering the savings might be statistically significant enough to pay for the maintenance premium for Class 5/90 MPH track.

 

[Tallguy]

I they would get Regional Rail electrification in gear, EMUs should be the only new purchases

 

[themissinglink]

I they would get Regional Rail electrification in gear, EMUs should be the only new purchases

During last November's public meeting, the presenters noted that the extension was being designed with enough vertical clearance for catenary as part of a future electrification project, however they made it clear that any electrification to Lowell was not happening soon enough for any electric service to New Hampshire in the near future.

 

[Tallguy]

Sorry, If

During last November's public meeting, the presenters noted that the extension was being designed with enough vertical clearance for catenary as part of a future electrification project, however they made it clear that any electrification to Lowell was not happening soon enough for any electric service to New Hampshire in the near future.

So, I was inferring that the total needed fleet of conventional coaches would drop enough if Prov, Fairmount and ER were EMUed that no additional fleet would be needed.

 

[themissinglink]

So, I was inferring that the total needed fleet of conventional coaches would drop enough if Prov, Fairmount and ER were EMUed that no additional fleet would be needed.

Ah, I understand what you're getting at now, my bad.

 

[HenryAlan]

I agree with @Brattle Loop that it's not so straightforward as where the track is located or how many miles a train travels in one state vs another. Suppose NH spends the money to widen the highways leading to Massachusetts. Induced demand then puts a lot of cars with NH plates on our roads. Massachusetts will have to pay to increase capacity for the sake of NH drivers, otherwise MA drivers will suffer. Why not redirect some of our own money away from helping New Hampshire's road widening projects and instead toward sending trains in to New Hampshire? Like it or not, Massachusetts is going to be spending money to support New Hampshire commuters. I'd rather it be spent on rail.

 

[Riverside]

Consolidating some data from that table into plausible extensions (not including infills on active CR lines). Direct distance and rail distance to the terminal, new rail distance, population (of listed municipalities only), and when the last service was operated. On these metrics alone, SCR and Manchester are very similar on mileage and population. However, Manchester will likely be a more valuable extension for several reasons:

• More of the new population is closer to Boston: Nashua (115k) at 35 miles and Chelmsford (36k) at 22 miles, versus Taunton (59k) at 32 miles.
• No branching or single track, so higher frequency possible
• Enough demand to justify local-express pattern, shortening travel times compared to local-only, and giving Lowell express service as well
• Doesn't compete with Cape Cod service for limited slots

I popped this chart into Excel, and added a new column: Population divided by Distance, as a rough proxy for "bang for buck". I also added a percentage column to show how the different options compare to the top contender. I also added a Pop div by New column, to focus on specific "capital costs bang for buck."

(I also did some consolidation and adjustment of Distance numbers; for example, Falmouth will never be built on its own, so I modified it to be "Cape Main + Falmouth.")

Sorting by Pop/New, we get this:

​

Line​	Terminus​	Crow​	Distance​	New​	Population​	Last service​	Pop/Dist​	​	Pop/New​	​
Essex​	Danvers​	16​	21.4​	5.1​	83,000​	1968​	3,878.50​	71%​	16,274.51​	100%​
NH Main Line​	Manchester​	48​	55.7​	30.1​	305,000​	1967 (1981)​	5,475.76​	100%​	10,132.89​	62%​
South Coast Rail​	FR/NB​	46/50​	68​	36.1​	288,000​	1958​	4,235.29​	77%​	7,977.84​	49%​
Franklin​	Milford​	28​	36.8​	6.1​	47,000​	1920 (1940)​	1,277.17​	23%​	7,704.92​	47%​
NH Main Line​	Concord​	63​	73.3​	47.7​	349,000​	1967 (1981)​	4,761.26​	87%​	7,316.56​	45%​
Manchester and Lawrence​	Manchester Airport​	44​	48.2​	22.8​	143,000​	1953​	2,966.80​	54%​	6,271.93​	39%​
Eastern Route​	Portsmouth​	52​	56.9​	20.6​	78,000​	1967​	1,370.83​	25%​	3,786.41​	23%​
Cape Main Line​	Hyannis​	63​	78.5​	42.9​	137,000​	1959 (1988)​	1,745.22​	32%​	3,193.47​	20%​
Agricultural Branch​	Clinton​	32​	45​	23.6​	73,000​	1931​	1,622.22​	30%​	3,093.22​	19%​
Cape Main Line and Falmouth​	Falmouth​	63/60​	91​	56.4​	169,000​	1959 (1988)​	1,857.14​	34%​	2,996.45​	18%​
Western Route​	Dover​	59​	67.1​	34.2​	78,000​	1967​	1,162.44​	21%​	2,280.70​	14%​

Unsurprisingly, the short extension to Danvers easily wins when measured based on New trackage, although it puts in a strong performance on overall Distance as well.

What is striking to me, however, is how much the Manchester extension towers over everything else, whether measured on overall Distance or New trackage.

If you remove the Danvers extension from consideration (it's somewhat of a different beast anyway), the numbers look like this:

And we see again that Manchester is head and shoulders above everything else, including SCR. Manchester requires less new trackage, has a bit more of a direct ROW, doesn't require branching to reach the full population, and has a larger population overall. (I ran an alternate calc that just imagined SCR service to New Bedford, and it plummets -- you only save ~10 miles of track/distance, and you lose a bit less than half the population.)

Other observations:

While it is true that Manchester beats out SCR, SCR still beats out everything else, easily. There is a very clear division between "Danvers, Manchester, Concord, SCR, and maybe Manchester Airport" and "everything else".

Milford illustrates the shortcomings of this analytical approach. While it scores well based on Pop vs New Trackage, it's dismal on Pop vs overall Distance; the travel Distance is over 30% greater than the Crow, and the Crow is the shortest on this list (aside from Danvers, which is also the only one within 128 -- again, a different beast).

The only other beyond-128 extension that has such a severe "Crow Cost" is the Agricultural Branch to Clinton, where Distance is 41% more than Crow. Manchester, Concord, Manchester Airport, and SCR (I think), as well as Portsmouth and Dover, all keep their Crow Costs below 20% (mostly around 15%). I personally believe those other extensions are still worthwhile, but I think this is a good illustration of why some folks might be more skeptical.

tl;dr: Lots of people live in Southern NH, and we should start running commuter rail trains there ASAP. Lots of people live on the South Coast, and we should start running commuter rail trains there ASAP.

[EDIT: Obligatory mention that this kind of analysis is intentionally back-of-the-napkin, and overlooks many salient factors. For instance, South Coast communities have consistently advocated for commuter rail for decades now, while New Hampshire has not. The Last Mile Problem comes into effect here -- do you have enough buses and/or enough parking + car ownership to get people to the station. Commuting patterns also matter -- not everyone who lives in Fall River works in Boston or wants to work in Boston. So don't take these calculations as gospel -- this is a conversational starting point, not a conclusion.]

 

[Riverside]

Like it or not, Massachusetts is going to be spending money to support New Hampshire commuters. I'd rather it be spent on rail.

100% this.

Also, "spending money on infrastructure outside of your territory to bring more people into your territory" is not a new concept. Consider the Belt and Road Initiative. (Granted, Massachusetts isn't quite the behemoth that China is, but still.)

Finally -- the reality is that we must end our century-old habit of centering automobiles. It's destroying our planet and it's destroying our communities. It's shameful that places like New Hampshire are selfishly unwilling to join in this cause, but we can't allow the happenstance colonial charter boundaries from the 1600s to bind our hands and force us to say "there's nothing we can do".

If the only way to drag New England into the third millennium is to have Massachusetts step up and pay to kick things off, then so be it. It's called leadership.

 

[Badusername]

100% this.

Also, "spending money on infrastructure outside of your territory to bring more people into your territory" is not a new concept. Consider the Belt and Road Initiative. (Granted, Massachusetts isn't quite the behemoth that China is, but still.)

Finally -- the reality is that we must end our century-old habit of centering automobiles. It's destroying our planet and it's destroying our communities. It's shameful that places like New Hampshire are selfishly unwilling to join in this cause, but we can't allow the happenstance colonial charter boundaries from the 1600s to bind our hands and force us to say "there's nothing we can do".

If the only way to drag New England into the third millennium is to have Massachusetts step up and pay to kick things off, then so be it. It's called leadership.

If NH wavers on paying for it with their new infrastructure funds, MA should finance it with a toll on I-93 right on the border of NH.

 

[JumboBuc]

If NH wavers on paying for it with their new infrastructure funds, MA should finance it with a toll on I-93 right on the border of NH.

Good luck getting that past FHWA.

 

[Stlin]

Good luck getting that past FHWA.

Apply the RIDOT model and make it a facility charge for rebuilt bridges. The I93 bridge over Hampshire Road in Methuen is 63 years old, after all...

 

[JumboBuc]

Apply the RIDOT model and make it a facility charge for rebuilt bridges. The I93 bridge over Hampshire Road in Methuen is 63 years old, after all...

Sure, MassDOT could put up a toll at that bridge to pay for its replacement if they were so inclined. But then they'd be obligated to actually use the funds raised by that toll to pay for the replacement of that (relatively minor) bridge.

FHWA wasn't born yesterday. They're not going to sign off on any cutesy tolling schemes that are transparently designed to target NH drivers.

 

[jklo]

Finally -- the reality is that we must end our century-old habit of centering automobiles. It's destroying our planet and it's destroying our communities. It's shameful that places like New Hampshire are selfishly unwilling to join in this cause, but we can't allow the happenstance colonial charter boundaries from the 1600s to bind our hands and force us to say "there's nothing we can do".

I doubt NH residents are delusional enough to think about working Downtown. 128, 495 sure. Plus I don't like the idea of encouraging people to live in NH when they could be living in MA.

I popped this chart into Excel, and added a new column: Population divided by Distance, as a rough proxy for "bang for buck". I also added a percentage column to show how the different options compare to the top contender. I also added a Pop div by New column, to focus on specific "capital costs bang for buck

Main thing you are missing is that NH riders are very likely to need to get on the T after getting to North Station. That's one advantage SCR has.

 

[jass]

The best time to toll 93 is now with Mayor Pete in charge.

 

[Rover]

I'm always amused by how these transit discussions spend zero time factoring in political reality. On what astral plane are Massachusetts voters going to happily go along with spending their money to run train service to another state? Any elected officials promoting this idea will get crucified on election day while New Hampshire laughs at the idiots to the south giving them money while they put up no cash of their own. This proposal belongs in Crazy Transit Pitches. If NH wants commuter rail let them pay for it. If they can't or won't, that's their problem. Mass has plenty of our own projects to fund.

 

[Brattle Loop]

I'm always amused by how these transit discussions spend zero time factoring in political reality. On what astral plane are Massachusetts voters going to happily go along with spending their money to run train service to another state? Any elected officials promoting this idea will get crucified on election day while New Hampshire laughs at the idiots to the south giving them money while they put up no cash if their own. This proposal belongs in Crazy Transit Pitches. If NH wants commuter rail let them pay for it. If they can't or won't, that's their problem. Mass has plenty of our own projects to fund.

Except political reality includes the understanding that voters are capable of understanding policies and issues at a level of complexity beyond ten words. (Whether or not the electorate bothers to do so tends to vary.) In this example, the easy counterargument that any pro-rail politicians could make to criticisms like yours is that projects like this would benefit Massachusetts. I don't have data, so I'm not trying to get into the question of whether that argument is valid in this specific example. Hypothetically, however, it would be eminently possible for studies to demonstrate that the economic benefit (i.e. tax revenues, but also benefits such as reduced use of roads, fewer emissions, fewer New Hampshire cars clogging up Lowell's CR parking lot) would outweigh the cost to the taxpayers. Now, true, that only marks it as non-wasteful and 'profitable' (for a given definition of profitable, which in the political context means "worth it" for the benefits), and doesn't address why we should spend our money rather than New Hampshire spending theirs, but there's a straightforward answer to that criticism as well: New Hampshire can never be bothered to do it. Obviously the best-case scenario would be for New Hampshire to spend the money, so we get the economic benefit for free, but if they're never going to do it (and they can never be relied upon to do it if history is any guide) then we simply have a choice between foregoing the economic benefit that the project would bring, or paying for it ourselves (again assuming Massachusetts gets a net benefit; obviously if it'd be a net negative it'd just be stupid).

 

[Rover]

@ Brattle, you're trying to make an intellectual argument that will resonate with 50 trainspotters and not with the 7m other people in the state. All voters will hear is "we're spending money to give NH train service". Nothing will break through after that. Feel free to try but it's a one way ticket to unemployment for any Mass official promoting it

 

[Brattle Loop]

@ Brattle, you're trying to make an intellectual argument that will resonate with 50 trainspotters and not with the 7m other people in the state. All voters will hear is "we're spending money to give NH train service". Nothing will break through after that. Feel free to try but it's a one way ticket to unemployment for any Mass official promoting it

I think you're probably overestimating both the stupidity of the general public (admittedly that may be optimistic on my part) and the salience of transportation-funding issues. I don't doubt that a referendum on a ballot initiative would probably fail, but that's a single-issue matter, quite different from a decision to turf out one's legislative representatives. I concede that if the main issue in a campaign was somehow the issue of NH commuter rail funding (which, uh, seems unlikely to happen in reality) any incumbents voting for such a project might be in for a tougher time than in a vacuum, but that doesn't mean that the economic-benefit counterargument is bound to fail. People are capable of understanding that. Moreover, and more importantly, media outlets are eminently capable of understanding that invest-to-benefit type of argument. Your operating assumption, that the narrative will be "spending money for no benefit" (I'm paraphrasing), is faulty, because there's no reason to believe that will necessarily be the story. Politicians of any meaningful ability tend to become adept at working the media to spin coverage to their benefits, meaning it is entirely feasible for supporters to make the narrative be "we're spending for economic growth".

(In the interest of not having this thread further go off the rails, I'm going to end my input on the politics of it here. I'm not saying that the state should do this, but I don't agree that it's inherently electoral poison and don't think the discussion on this thread - or in public, for that matter - should be dismissed on that fear. That said, I do agree that there are probably projects that have a better cost-benefit ratio to Massachusetts than NH CR that should therefore come higher on the priority list.)

 

[themissinglink]

If NH wants commuter rail let them pay for it. If they can't or won't, that's their problem.

It's not "their problem" that the Lowell Line lacks a dedicated layover yard, that's our problem. AFAIK the only proposals to build a yard for the Lowell Line have all been in New Hampshire; Massachusetts would clearly benefit from NH Commuter Rail. I'm not advocating for Massachusetts to pay for NH Commuter Rail, but it's certainly not as cut-and-dry as you keep trying to make it out to be.