Could the tracks that are across from the Portsmouth Sheraton ever be used as an alternative to rebuilding the old branch. I believe it connect to the Downeaster line. If they did use this route it would have been great to have built the Portsmouth Transportation Center near these tracks.
Yes. That's by the rail yard where the Eastern Route and Portsmouth Branch converge. The problem, as I mentioned, is that forking off the Downeaster route is far inferior and wouldn't fetch the ridership.
Consider the population differences between the routes. These are the towns each route passes through...NOT including adjoining towns in the station catchment areas.
Western Route + Portsmouth Branch
Haverhill, MA - pop. 60,879
Plaistow - pop. 7,609 (probable Haverhill Line terminus)
Newton - pop. 4,603
East Kingston - pop. 2,357
Exeter - pop. 14,306 (existing stop)
Newfields - pop. 1,680
Stratham - n/a (line clips unpopulated area with no public road access)
Greenland - pop. 3,549
Portsmouth - pop. 21,233 (possibility for intermediate stop @ I-95/NH 33/Pease Airport)
Eastern Route
Newburyport, MA - pop. 17,416 (2 probable stops)
Salisbury, MA - pop. 8,283
Seabrook - pop. 8,693 (probable stop)
Hampton Falls - pop. 2,236
Hampton - pop. 14,976 (pre-1965 stop, probable)
North Hampton - pop. 4,301 (pre-1965 stop, probable)
Portsmouth - pop. 21,233 (downtown stop only)
That's a large difference. Looking at the Western Route I'm not sure how you could justify any additional intermediate stops other than the pre-existing Downeaster stop in Exeter. And the only thing you can do with the Portsmouth Branch is to bet big on TOD at a 95/Pease parking sink and hope that has enough unique boardings to not dilute ridership at the downtown stop.
Now consider as well the only way to do this in under 2 hours is to slash and burn the number of stops it makes in MA. The Haverhill Line can't be sped up between Andover and Plaistow because of the curves. About the only thing you can improve is the Lowell Line to Wilmington. So say your only tolerable schedule is to make the Top 4 stops out to Haverhill: Anderson, Wilmington, Lawrence, Haverhill. That's a lot of rush hour revenue forfeited in MA when Haverhill trains usually fill up solid, and very little collected in NH past Plaistow.
This is a loss leader on both sides of the border. NHDOT bleeds farebox recovery like crazy on all those desolate running miles, and the T forfeits boardings at stops that pack Haverhill locals full and need more rush hour local slots. And it gets worse when you consider that weak performance puts it third on the passenger pecking order behind Haverhill and the Downeaster, on congested track. Portsmouth would have by far the most variable on-time performance of the three, and would not get benefit of the doubt when shuffling has to be done around conflicts. That's going to hurt its ridership.
Plus, all of this gets left on the table:
-- Should the T divorce the Reading and Haverhill halves of the line from each other and relocate Haverhill permanently back to the Lowell Line, the trip time savings on the locals will likely get cashed in for 1 or 2 reopened infill stops:
*
North Andover (likely...coveted by the town)
*
Shawsheen (less likely due to ownership and ADA-retrofit issues with the station building, but serving a growing office park)
* ...plus a
Salem St. Wilmington trade-in for closed North Wilmington
* ...plus likely double-up of service at Winchester Ctr. and any future Woburn/Montvale infill on the Lowell Line.
That's a lot more revenue forfeited than just skipping Ballardvale, Andover, and Bradford to make this work. It's the difference between filling up a 7-car bi-level on every Haverhill/Plaistow rush hour slot vs. taking some of those slots for 4- or 5-car Portsmouth limiteds that are unlikely to fill up.
-- For NHDOT, peeling off at Newfields omits these Western Route destinations that pre-1965 commuter rail passed through (not including adjoining towns in the catchment area):
* Newmarket - pop. 8,936
*
Durham - pop. 14,638 (Downeaster stop)
* Madbury - pop. 1,771
*
Dover - pop. 30,220 (Downeaster stop)
That is a lot to pass up for one token Seacoast destination. And forking CR service to Dover gets a lot more distant a proposition if this Portsmouth misfit doesn't perform well enough to hold its own on schedule priority in MA. It can inadvertently hurt the buildout of further service to UNH and Dover to lead the expansion with this Portsmouth loss leader instead of Dover. This is not going to be the one to lead the past-Plaistow expansion with. Dover is. And that brings up another chicken-and-egg dilemma: how is Portsmouth-via-Haverhill ever going to carve out its traffic priority now when it's
fourth on the passenger pecking order behind the MA locals, Downeaster, and Dover semi-expresses.
You get the picture. Yes, it's theoretically possible to have every service and keep it in some semblance of balance. But the finances just do not work with it having the worst farebox recovery on the northside MBTA paired with the worst farebox recovery of any of the Top 3 or 4 potential NHDOT commuter rail routes. No one's going to be able to look at that with a straight face and say that it's the right thing to do.
They're far better off just going for it on the Eastern Route where speeds are fast enough to make all stops on a full schedule, max out the T's Newburyport revenue intake by packing supersize trains full on every peak slot, hit the gut of the Seacoast's population center...and not overcomplicate the Western Route where more Haverhill/Plaistow locals, more Downeasters, and Durham/Dover service make the most effective use of that line's remaining capacity. Yes, it's expensive. But it's chasing a winner. Chasing a loser carries with it its own costs in stalled momentum.