Encore Boston Harbor Casino | 1 Broadway | Everett

[whighlander]

https://www.bostonglobe.com/busines...alZ7tIRVCvWcwRCnVWRK/story.html?event=event25

https://wynnresortslimited.gcs-web.com/static-files/b5782973-5a07-4a4f-9379-a0edcc250175

Wynn and Everett want an entertainment district and (good news, F-Line!) a CR/SL combo station. At the second link, the interesting slide is 16.

Also - sorry Mayor, but the MBTA is wise to your game now and probably won't sell maintenance garages under its current leadership. The Everett Shop is also a huge employment center - you'd think a mayor would want all those jobs and potential spending at neighborhood businesses, but he's chasing the techies.

Equilib -- look at page 60

there's a reason why that image is there and why the perspective

Wynn Resorts has its eyes on everything in the foreground in that image including the T shops

My guess is the deal to the T is -- sell us your land and we'll build the CR / Silver Line combined station

Since they are already committed to the Pedestrian Bridge to Assembly -- walking distance would link Orange to CR and Silver Line setting up for major development in Everett

 

[stick n move]

The massive parking lots next door I think may be another potential spot for the soccer stadium. OL bridge connection coming, cr/sl coming, existing water taxi, and so I think that massive amount of land would be great for redevelopment from a strip mall to stadium, condos, offices, retail..etc. Put ped bridges over the tracks to the future dev that will come behind the casino, then Assembly across the water is connected by bridge, and this becomes a massively successful and mixed use corner of the city. You also have wellington ripe for even more. This could be an area for massive growth with great transit access.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

We keep talking about the bridge's impossible slope, but the construction of a station is also a big civil work and an opportunity for "don't lower the bridge...raise the approach"

How hard would it be to raise the elevation of the tracks so that the incline on the Everett side is not too steep?

I picture tall berm and a partially aerial station. Bury/demolish/tie-in some of the bridge's Everett approaches into a new retained-earth structure.

High enough to make the slope not an issue, and then making a pedestrian underpass plaza (under a "bridge" section" of the station) to allow easy access to center-platform station and track-crossing underneath--similar to how the Lowell Line was raised to create Wedgemere's berm-and-bridge setup.

And then you'd be looking at the owners of the Shopping Center (good capitalists) as the party to supply the large parcel for redevelopment.

It's not doable because of Everett Jct. needing to be on tangent track, not the Sweetser Circle curve, and the leads needing to be long enough to hold a max-size freight train for the terminal. If you're dropping down off an extended embankment both the junction and the track length vs. curve get fouled and federal preemption sets in over compromised capacity. Not to mention greater derailment risk from over-compressing the whole works.

Everett isn't a Massport terminal...it's private. And even though CSX no longer serves the terminal itself, it still has direct rights there and customers there handled by Pan Am haulage. So 2 freight RR's and a private terminal can EACH preempt such action.

Again...nice dream, but there are good reasons why you can't...no matter how rich...just up and say in the media you're planning to build on someone else's property. These are parties that have the mechanisms in-hand to extract maximum pain in an asking price, and some of them could not care less how rich Encore is.

 

[tangent]

All of the transpo stuff seems predicated on acquisition of Everett Shops, since the article states that's where the multimodal stop would be. That is the first level opportunity to pour a platform as, previously mentioned, behind the casino-proper the incline to the bridge is too steep to pass ADA regs for platform slope. It doesn't sound like they have any interest in this without the Shops in-hand, and therein lies the problem. T doesn't want to sell, and zoning alone would make finding a relocation site difficult because the heavy machinery inside for fabricating large parts (which directly affects how the building itself is configured) makes it a de facto factory that probably can't slide onto a non-industrial zoned parcel without great difficulty. Much less on an industrial zoned parcel near enough to another T facility to pool functions.

Then there's the whole pickle of relocating Everett Jct. for the freight leads, federal preemption therein, the need to compensate Pan Am and the terminal with more yard tracks inside the terminal if the leads are going to be significantly shortened, etc. etc. And dealings with Eversource for adding station egresses right by their two power line tower easements behind the Shops.


I mean, it's nice to dream and all...but something-something about the wisdom of coveting other people's property too loudly in a major national newspaper. . .

They already sold to Wynn. Wynn owns a corridor along the tracks behind the Everett Shops which is where they show the "proposed commuter rail and silver line station". See page/slide 16.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

They already sold to Wynn. Wynn owns a corridor along the tracks behind the Everett Shops which is where they show the "proposed commuter rail and silver line station". See page/slide 16.

I'm well aware of that. It means nothing. They can't build said station without negotiations with T, CSX, Pan Am, and Everett Terminal for reconfiguration of Everett Jct. which sits right there on the T's ROW...and negotiations with Eversource for pedestrian access on their two tower easements.

Owning that strip means absolute bupkis for being able to build something there. It's a back access driveway until they are able to herd each and every one of those cats into making trades. And I don't see ALL the parties doing that...especially the two freight railroads who are pretty much the embodiment of I.D.G.A.F. over what meager improvements are left to reach for re: terminal access.

 

[Czervik.Construction]

Love playing craps. You play conservative, spread your bets around the table, know when to take profits off the table, you can play for hours on not too much money. High energy too, like a commodities trading floor. Just have to avoid stupid yo bets.

Any of you folks ever taken a serious study of Craps?

 

[whighlander]

I'm well aware of that. It means nothing. They can't build said station without negotiations with T, CSX, Pan Am, and Everett Terminal for reconfiguration of Everett Jct. which sits right there on the T's ROW...and negotiations with Eversource for pedestrian access on their two tower easements.

Owning that strip means absolute bupkis for being able to build something there. It's a back access driveway until they are able to herd each and every one of those cats into making trades. And I don't see ALL the parties doing that...especially the two freight railroads who are pretty much the embodiment of I.D.G.A.F. over what meager improvements are left to reach for re: terminal access.

F-Line -- just like Kendall the Casino is powered by people who plan and execute on short order -- waving around $$ usually smooths the deal making

I don't think that the railroads want those very low usage routes which are vestiges of a totally different era all that much

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

F-Line -- just like Kendall the Casino is powered by people who plan and execute on short order -- waving around $$ usually smooths the deal making

I don't think that the railroads want those very low usage routes which are vestiges of a totally different era all that much

That is a wholly over-simplistic view that canot be plugged-and-played into every single situation under the sun.

CSX has a $62B market cap and pays $0 for trackage rights to Everett. They have made a reputation for themselves as one of the largest I.D.G.A.F. industrial conglomerates in the country. This notion that they are going to do all the work to file an abandonment notice with the Surface Transportation Board because some other party is waving cash at them has been disproven already hundreds of times over on the 20,000+ miles of track they own. It's not just taking a fat cheque to the bank; it entails busywork only they can do, when today they don't need to do anything here or hardly anything with their entire Eastern MA freight franchise. Their asking price for returning a voice mail message about a "GO AWAY" payoff on that half-mile of track is already more than the casino would ever rationally be willing to pay.

Pan Am is wholly privately owned by an eccentric billionaire (Tim Mellon, of the Mellon family) who has prided self for 35 years on zagging when everyone else zigs, even when that has lost him money for a 'win' at denying someone else a gain. He's been more active in real estate the last several years, but has none of it to trade here. Likewise, $0 trackage rights guaranteed in perpetuity. Traditionally, an even more futile gesture to try to get a returned phone call from Pan Am.


Could these companies ultimately be motivated? Possible. But given that both are in a whole other business realm and/or headspace, it's unlikely you'd ever get BOTH of them batting an eye at casino fun bux. And we haven't even gotten to Everett Terminal yet, or what contractual entanglements they have dating back half-century with these railroads, or what their terminal tenants have for entanglements (New England Produce was one of the vendors controversially relocated from Faneuil Hall 50 years ago), or what rail-access grants for submission/resubmission they have in the hopper. These were never two-party talks. It's an extremely complicated negotiation that could be done in by any one objection from any one member. And complicated things can't be washed aside by "waving around $$" blah blah blah.

The casino had a much harder row than that to get built in the first place, and at no point from Day 1 to now have they ever indicated they were willing to over-spend to absolute stupidity for an asset. Wynn, after all, had a personal aversion and embarrassment to the kinds of individual resort bankruptcies that were endemic and somewhat normalized in the gaming industry. Even for a symbolic 'win' I can't see the company ever making an official offer for some asset that doesn't come within their internal parameters for allowable overpay. They know when to fold, and to keep in orbit.

Since the number of partners here who'd have to co-sign and the I.D.G.A.F. reps of some of the partners in question are huge question marks, the probability is pretty high that the casino would have to spend stupider than it would truly tolerate for that CR stop. That's the reality of a situation tailor-made for cosignees who overtly act to be left alone. The shortest-order executor also doesn't "wave around $$" without a limit, and they didn't get to be in that position with Wynn Resorts by spending stupid all the time. I don't know why we're assuming that operators who've played it shrewd all along would all of a sudden start playing stupid. As long as their transit portfolio has multiple options in it up to and including the Silver Line on the other side of the ROW, this isn't yet anywhere near a tactical nuclear strike must-have in the "waving $$ around" dept.

 

[Arlington]

Which one is Everett Junction, and how would elevating a CR station make it non-tangent*

Or try this: A 3 track, two level solution:

1) Single-track Freight lead/siding shifted slightly *east*, onto Wynn-owned strip, but essentially retaining its current geometry.

2) CR&SL raised onto a flat-enough-for-a-CR-station, retained-earth berm. Shopping Center should be happy to contribute the width needed for a station, if the ROW needs to bulb-out on the west side.

3) Elevating the CR/SL on the (compass-)west side of the Freight would also set up a SL flyover of the freight tracks the SL3 should have anyway**

*Tangent = RR lingo for "straight" and "non-tangent" = curved

** the SL3 is currently "boxed in" on the South/terminal/Market Basket side of the CR, but to get to Wellington, it needs, at some point, to cross "outside" the rail perimeter of the Everett Terminal

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Which one is Everett Junction, and how would elevating a CR station make it non-tangent*

Or try this: A 3 track, two level solution:

1) Single-track Freight lead/siding shifted slightly *east*, onto Wynn-owned strip, but essentially retaining its current geometry.

2) CR&SL raised onto a flat-enough-for-a-CR-station, retained-earth berm. Shopping Center should be happy to contribute the width needed for a station, if the ROW needs to bulb-out on the west side.

3) Elevating the CR/SL on the (compass-)west side of the Freight would also set up a SL flyover of the freight tracks the SL3 should have anyway**

*Tangent = RR lingo for "straight" and "non-tangent" = curved

** the SL3 is currently "boxed in" on the South/terminal/Market Basket side of the CR, but to get to Wellington, it needs, at some point, to cross "outside" the rail perimeter of the Everett Terminal

Everett Jct. is the set of crossovers behind Everett Shops where the Everett Terminal lead forks off on one side and the Saugus Branch stub forks off on the other side for reaching the T's ballast pile. First crossover starts about as close to the end of the bridge incline as you can feasibly get. Encore's render plunks an 800 ft. platform literally on top of it.

Building *any* station squishes the junction about 1000 ft. east to the foot of the Sweetser curve, compresses the crossovers, creates an elevated derailment risk that will jack rates for terminal customers, and probably forces Pan Am to run 'wrong-rail' on the return trip over the bridge to avoid taking the extra crossover on the much-compressed junction with a fully-loaded train...which will be guaranteed to gum up Rockburyport CR traffic.

As said previously, that earthen berm isn't going to work. The bridge approach is steel and concrete, and if you level out into a berm for 1000 ft. (incl. required buffer for stopping distance) you're squeezing Everett Jct. against the Sweetser curve all the same while creating a second post-station incline. All of these schemes fail for the same reason: too little space before curve for a junction with special traffic needs. If you can't space 2 crossovers and a junction switch far enough apart for a freight train, two...maybe three...objectors right off the bat are going to block it. The End...magical thinking about Encore fun bux remains magical.

Further, most of the length of the freight lead is actually owned by CSX, who inherited it from original builder Boston & Albany. They're going to object to Everett Jct. being squeezed onto their property, and object to terminal car storage being cut (doubly so with SL3 extension swallowing the 2nd Ave. storage tracks.


NONE of this prevents building the Silver Line side to the shopping ctr. at future Urban Ring compatibility. None of it. The need to switch sides of the ROW between 2nd and Sweetser is going to be expensive construction in flyovers or duck-unders, but if Encore wants a tactical nuclear strike that's the one they can guarantee gets built. The only casualty is the T's ballast pile, which can be relocated elsewhere.

So let's please not let target fixation about that legit unlikely-by-probability CR platform overshadow what feasible things they can focus on.

 

[Arlington]

I'm going to persist in my denseness: Do the freight RRs have a claim on accessing the ballast pile side? If so, I get it: they have no reason to give up access on both sides of the ROW (or you'd spend too much on flying the CR over stuff)

But if not entitled to go the ballast pile side, I'm still not quite picturing what the Freights are entitled to that they can't be assured of from a single inner (Eastern/Terminalside/Casinoside) track, and might not be happier to have all to themselves--and park on for all we care-- instead of sharing with NPort/RPort CR.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Since the infrastructure is very crowded here, I crayoned up an illustration of what we're dealing with:

End of bridge incline to start of the Sweetser Circle curve--the two geometric variables that matter for train traffic--is 1300 ft.

Everett Jct. start-to-finish stretches 1200 ft. between first crossover and last junction switch.

An MBTA platform runs 800 ft.


To make this work you would have to compact the junction into 400 ft., because the split-off isn't happening on a curve with the derailment risk and isn't happening on the commuter rail's second-steepest incline. Pretty much the only way to do it is to delete the two crossovers, which is a terrible idea for resiliency and would outright torpedo mid-afternoon schedules so Pan Am could crawl wrong-rail back to Somerville. Earthen berms?...awesome, you get a platform right behind the casino but kick the can on doing 725 more feet of descent onto the top of Everett Jct. where the traffic effects are just as punitive and no-go.

Encore fun bux isn't going to make the very bad tape-measure readings here suddenly look good. I think we're looking at building out Silver/UR and that's it.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I'm going to persist in my denseness: Do the freight RRs have a claim on accessing the ballast pile side? If so, I get it: they have no reason to give up access on both sides of the ROW (or you'd spend too much on flying the CR over stuff)

But if not entitled to go the ballast pile side, I'm still not quite picturing what the Freights are entitled to that they can't be assured of from a single inner (Eastern/Terminalside/Casinoside) track, and might not be happier to have all to themselves--and park on for all we care-- instead of sharing with NPort/RPort CR.

The ballast pile is the T's and can be moved anywhere. That's not the problem. That side of the ROW is the Silver Line's side after it somehow hops sides after 2nd Ave., and you can do what you please over there.

The Everett Terminal lead is the problem. Look at my last post with the layout...and more importantly the measurements. It simply does not work because there isn't enough space between the end of the bridge incline and start of the tight curve to retain the junction infrastructure while putting in a platform. It's several hundred feet too little room.

 

[Arlington]

Thank you for the photo.

I'd say I'm proposing splitting off the Freights to take a single track that starts where crossover 1 is today, essentially having them run on the Monsanto Siding (red) and tie that to the Terminal lead (yellow), and Pan Am and CSX can fight over who gets to park on it--but hey, they gain a parking track.

Maybe the CR-on-berm ends up side platformed to keep its CR crossover? (and the western outboard platform gets a cross-platform transfer from CR-inbound to SL3-airportbound). And you'd push the CR crossover farther out.

I'll have to think more about how to get 3 tracks sorted out on the bridge's approach, but I think that where Crossover 1 is now there'd be an exactly parallel mainline-to-Monsanto-siding turnout.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Thank you for the photo.

I'd say I'm proposing splitting off the Freights to take a single track that starts where crossover 1 is today, essentially having them run on the Monsanto Siding (red) and tie that to the Terminal lead (yellow), and Pan Am and CSX can fight over who gets to park on it--but hey, they gain a parking track.

That flat-out will not work. Crossover #1 is mandatory or else you have freights on return trip to Somerville fucking up commuter traffic every afternoon of the week when they're running wrong-rail. The T is going to be the #1 loudest objector, followed by Pan Am who are always under intense pressure to get back to Somerville without interfering. That plan is totally D.O.A.

If you want to peel off onto the Monsato track after the crossover, fine...space it several car lengths out for safety, and then turn out. Forget about the second crossover; it's a little less Purple Line resiliency, but at least the freights never need to use that one. Guess what? Now you're on the back half of the Everett Shops building and have far less than 800 feet for a platform before the sharp curve starts...probably not even enough for the 450 ft. minimum for platforms in the T's CR design manual (shorties being a bad idea here anyway given how crowded Rockburyports routinely get). And since access constraints more or less require that this stop be an island platform with up-and-over access and not two side platforms, there can't be ANY curvature whatsoever on the island.

It doesn't work. None of it comes close enough to work.

Maybe the CR-on-berm ends up side platformed to keep its CR crossover? (and the western outboard platform gets a cross-platform transfer from CR-inbound to SL3-airportbound)

No crossovers allowed middle of platform because of the derailment risk...nonstarter. They must be separated. Especially because it's the freights who HAVE to use the crossover every single day. For CR they aren't used in regular practice except for bypassing track work. And these crossovers must be decently long/straight for taking a weight-imbalanced freight train.

The berm idea is a decoy. As said in the last post you have to finish the descent off the bridge eventually before the Sweetser curve, so if you dump dirt to put a platform beside the bridge you're shoving the rest of the incline on top of Everett Jct. and running into the same math problem of not nearly enough space to accomplish all tasks.

 

[Arlington]

^ thank you for your patience with me.

So, just a SL3/UR stop?

Incidentally would any Urban ring construction be constrained to only have grades that the greenline could climb, so as to support long-term conversion to light rail?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

^ thank you for your patience with me.

So, just a SL3/UR stop?

Incidentally would any Urban ring construction be constrained to only have grades that the greenline could climb, so as to support long-term conversion to light rail?

Anything a 60-footer can climb a trolley can climb much faster, so it's safe to say that any infrastructure they build will support LRT conversion either as an outright mode switch where tracks/ties/ballast replace the pavement or in a dual-mode setting where the rails are street-running in the busway. The main pickle with the busway is that it has to switch sides of the ROW somewhere between 2nd St. and the Sweetser curve to avoid the freight track. That will probably involve some very pricey flyover ramps, and possibly some abutter objections from the nearby Paris St. residences. Trolley could probably do a very quick duck-under, but the buses will likely need to have more space-invasive infrastructure for the switch to do it in a way that doesn't clobber speeds...or clobber speeds in a 1-2 punch with the sharp curve.

That and things like power line tower relocation for the flyovers, negotiations with the T for relocating their ballast pile elsewhere because the Saugus Branch track will be blocked (easy negotiation, but they need a place not too far out of town), and negotiations with Everett Terminal for building more freight storage inside the terminal by the gas tanks because of the busway extension cannibalizing their 2500 ft. of double-track storage on the ROW. As much as it should eventually reach there, the casino will probably need to sit on the Silver Line prospect for awhile because of expenses like the flyovers that are a bit stiff even for them. So I'm not sure it'll happen soon...just eventually.

 

[whighlander]

Anything a 60-footer can climb a trolley can climb much faster, so it's safe to say that any infrastructure they build will support LRT conversion either as an outright mode switch where tracks/ties/ballast replace the pavement or in a dual-mode setting where the rails are street-running in the busway. The main pickle with the busway is that it has to switch sides of the ROW somewhere between 2nd St. and the Sweetser curve to avoid the freight track. That will probably involve some very pricey flyover ramps, and possibly some abutter objections from the nearby Paris St. residences. Trolley could probably do a very quick duck-under, but the buses will likely need to have more space-invasive infrastructure for the switch to do it in a way that doesn't clobber speeds...or clobber speeds in a 1-2 punch with the sharp curve.

That and things like power line tower relocation for the flyovers, negotiations with the T for relocating their ballast pile elsewhere because the Saugus Branch track will be blocked (easy negotiation, but they need a place not too far out of town), and negotiations with Everett Terminal for building more freight storage inside the terminal by the gas tanks because of the busway extension cannibalizing their 2500 ft. of double-track storage on the ROW. As much as it should eventually reach there, the casino will probably need to sit on the Silver Line prospect for awhile because of expenses like the flyovers that are a bit stiff even for them. So I'm not sure it'll happen soon...just eventually.

F-Line -- a Trolley can Climb perhaps but not necessarily Turn while climbing*1 -- a bus is clearly superior in mobility to a trolley, let alone a heavy rail vehicle

*1 because of the way rail vehicles move around a curve and the required nature of the rail profile and the match to the wheels to compensate for the gradient in the radius of curvature

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

F-Line -- a Trolley can Climb perhaps but not necessarily Turn while climbing*1 -- a bus is clearly superior in mobility to a trolley, let alone a heavy rail vehicle

*1 because of the way rail vehicles move around a curve and the required nature of the rail profile and the match to the wheels to compensate for the gradient in the radius of curvature

The above word salad about how vehicle types make turns on pavement or fixed guideway is completely off-topic and utterly irrelevant to...anything. Don't start slipping back into old bad habits, Professor.


This is the Urban Ring ROW. Any SL3 extension to Encore is by-default going to be future-compatible with a mode change or dual-mode running, because there are too many un-studied unknowns across the river like how BRT's going to cross the spaghetti rail junctions in Somerville and what it's going to connect to. But we don't have to know today what the future holds and what a re-study of this Ring quadrant might end up recommending, because busway construction for 60-footer buses is out-of-box compatible with laying rail later. Including on those flyover ramps for switching sides of the ROW.

Now, a question that could inform future decisions is whether there are going to be just one--SL3--route, or multiple routes taking advantage of this extension. Right now it's hard to see more than just the one route using it because the ROW affords no up/down access at Sweetser to Broadway attracting anything from Sullivan or Malden Center. The only access point is going to be from the shopping center parking lot which can give SL3 a Wellington terminus and maybe throw up some routing options from west on 16. But while I can see the shopping center as a means of looping a few otherwise Wellington-terminating routes at Encore, I don't think the way routes are laid out vs. their terminals that you're going to have much originating elsewhere then running thru on the busway Encore-Chelsea because schedules would simply get too long and strung-out continuing that far past Wellington. Since "off-roading" coattails appear to be very limited here it's pretty much a fixed single route, which makes the UR modal decision-making the same jump-ball it's been all along. Nothing's really changed with that decision.

 

[DominusNovus]

Hey F-Line, I know this is beating a dead horse, but I figure you can provide the answer quickest (and my apologies if you did so recently).

Could a CR station fit on the bridge itself, in theory?