Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail (South Coast Rail)

BeansTheCat said:
Does the system have timed, cross-platform transfers anywhere else? I'm not aware of any, and this is on top of just starting up basic service. The 10 minute buffer is too long, but there's no reason to believe that won't shorten once there's a better understanding of exactly how long the trips take in practice. Frankly, I'd rather the T err on the side of caution at the start of service and prove to the public that these transfers can be relied upon. If the transfers are consistently missed at the start of service, it could, at worst, prevent any future use of timed transfers throughout the system. At best, it would be just viewed as just another sign that the T can't be trusted to deliver on their promises.

I'll agree that a first-world transit agency should be better equipped to spin up a reliable cross-platform transfer with only a few minutes of buffer. But the T hasn't operated like a first-world transit agency in decades, if not generations. I'll take these baby steps over the status quo, which has been to not even try measures like this.
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It was also stated in the meeting that all scheduling stuff is based off of simulated running and computer models of service that they will adjust the schedules over time with actual service. It was in response to the public Q&A segment because someone specfically asked about the overall journey time end to end.
 
This looks fantastic. With every recent project (inc. much of SCR) seemingly being value engineered, it's refreshing to see some inspired design. The bridge itself is clearly visible from 195 and is a gateway to downtown on Route 18 (the primary entrance to the city center). It's a nice, new landmark for the Whaling City.
 
Someone mentioned that SC rail would be skipping the short-turn shuttle trains on the weekends when headways are the longest. That seems frustrating. Is there any chance they could use busses on the weekends instead?
Ultimately, it would be great to use BEMU's for these short-turn shuttles... and it could probably be a very short train, one or two cars.
 
www.southcoasttoday.com

New Bedford mayor asks to name pedestrian bridge for WWII, Korean War veteran. Who was he?

The new bridge connecting downtown New Bedford to the MBTA commuter rail station could be named for a veteran wounded in Korea.
www.southcoasttoday.com
NEW BEDFORD — The new pedestrian bridge connecting downtown New Bedford to the city’s new MBTA commuter rail station may be named for World War II and Korean War veteran Army Cpl. Andre Lopes, if the City Council agrees to a proposal.

The bridge that currently spans Route 18 at Pearl Street was named for Lopes in 1977. That bridge will be demolished.
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So, am I the only one who sees the present craziness in DC as a possible opportunity to get the Corps decision changed on phase two through the swamp?
 
Tallguy said:
So, am I the only one who sees the present craziness in DC as a possible opportunity to get the Corps decision changed on phase two through the swamp?
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The viaduct is not the problem, electrification is. I would frankly consider the viaduct to be a good idea, swamps are valuable for the local ecosystem and for water storage, not to mention being prone to flooding by their very nature. Building the line higher up seems like a wise choice.
 
TheRatmeister said:
The viaduct is not the problem, electrification is. I would frankly consider the viaduct to be a good idea, swamps are valuable for the local ecosystem and for water storage, not to mention being prone to flooding by their very nature. Building the line higher up seems like a wise choice.
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The main issue with the viaduct (aside from the cost) is that it's planned as a single-track viaduct instead of a double-track one. It needs to be double-tracked if they're gonna build a viaduct through the Hockomock Swamp.

The plan for Phase 2 has way too much single-track on the mainline, requiring trains to skip-stop during rush hour.
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TheRatmeister said:
The viaduct is not the problem, electrification is. I would frankly consider the viaduct to be a good idea, swamps are valuable for the local ecosystem and for water storage, not to mention being prone to flooding by their very nature. Building the line higher up seems like a wise choice.
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Except there's precedent there. The Greenbush Line had a very similar long swamp embankment in Scituate that was abandoned the same year (1960) as the Stoughton Line through Hock Swamp, and the Corps was absolutely fine with that one being re-used when the line was being restored from 2005-07. The most glaring thing from the South Coast Rail FEIR was that they gave absolutely no explanation for why the $50M swamp trestle was needed, and gave absolutely no explanation for why the trestle had to be single and not double-track. It was like one line in the report, and they just said it must be so. So there's two problems there....they didn't explain why they reversed precedent so soon, and they didn't explain hardly anything in general. That's where the pushback needs to be. The Corps arguably didn't satisfy a basic standard of documentation for their decisions. Same goes for why there's so much single-tracking where the swamp is not. You could *conceivably* get by running real :30 Regional Rail mainline service levels with Hock Swamp-proper being restricted to single track so long as the rest of the mainline to Myricks Jct. was DT, but we're left with that humongous gap throughout Easton and smaller gap in Raynham that don't need to be nearly as large as they are. And the Corps provided no documentation for why that must be so...they just decreed that it must be so.

That brings in the electrification canard. That has nothing to do with environmental issues, and everything to do with just how brittle the meets are going to be on all that single-track. The Phase II service plan was to have all peak Fall River trains express past Easton Village, Raynham, Downtown Taunton, and East Taunton to make time for meets with peak New Bedford trains that were all going to express past Canton Jct., Canton Center, and Stoughton. Bona fide service loss for the existing Stoughton Branch, and way sub- Regional Rail service throughout the mainline (if the peak is expanding to all-day, basically no one except North Easton Station gets adequate service levels). And despite all that expressing the peak express vs. off-peak local travel times only varied by about 2 minutes. Where does all the express time savings get lost en route?...at long pauses on passing sidings. To even make that hack-a-thon work, they had to search for a 5% reduction from the best a diesel push-pull schedule could muster...because on existing equipment the meets would be such a total clusterfuck that there was basically no hope of ever running things on-time. Enter electrification as an ass-covering measure. Any electric vehicle could cover the 5% deficit for idealized meets, so the Corps required the whole works to be electrified. Just said it must be so, no documentation as to why. Pay no attention to the fact that stock EMU's achieve a reliable 15-18% reduction in schedules from diesel P-P. 15% would've changed the meet points and created a whole slew of new single-track conflicts, so they went with an overly conservative 5% (which is kind of wimpy even for electric push-pull) because that was the one figure that would make the Corps' preordained single-track layout work on meets. In theory. If we actually adopt EMU's, we'd still see no more than 5% savings because the meets would have to be in exactly the same place to work at all. Total brokenness.

The 2013 FEIR is a hilariously (though not in a funny way) bad document. It's negligent work. It's full of holes. It has a service plan that flat-out doesn't work in the real world. It has to be burned to the ground and started anew, and held to a whole different standard of proof because the Corps abandoned its vision of producing an authoritative document that you could actually build something from. It's much more deeply flawed at way many more levels than "Why a trestle and not an embankment?"
 
Tallguy said:
So, am I the only one who sees the present craziness in DC as a possible opportunity to get the Corps decision changed on phase two through the swamp?
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In a totally chaotic federal government, do you think you'd get the new decision you'd want?

The last Corps decision required a lot of problematic single-tracking, allegedly (kinda) for environmental reasons. But that made no sense, and there was probably a bunch of behind the scenes political feuding going on. Now we have an administration that doesn't care at all about environmental regulations. But they also hate public transit, they're petty and vindictive, they'll generally hate Massachusetts, and they'll act on that. Asking the Corps for a reevaluation now sounds like a gamble, at the very least. I think realistically that request would be doomed.
 
BTW...this is more like the minimum track layout for operating Regional Rail over Phase II. Triple track on the NEC Readville-Canton like is now planned, because doing this with double-track won't provide the source frequencies (it required skipping everything from Back Bay to Canton Jct. in the original FEIR to make the meets work). Double-track on the Stoughton main everywhere except the Hock Swamp embankment, and double-track at all station platforms. Then try your luck at re-modeling meets. Hopefully it all checks out and the meets clear the full-speed swamp straightaway so you aren't in a prone negotiating position with the Army Corps about doubling up that trestle. This should provide for :30 bi-directional clock-facing frequencies to East Taunton, and hourlies to each of the (un-altered) branches.
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Really, that original FEIR track chart is an abomination for how much it kneecaps service without adequate explanation as to why.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Really, that original FEIR track chart is an abomination for how much it kneecaps service without adequate explanation as to why.
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It's not explained in the FEIR, but I'm guessing that the single-track section between Raynham Park and Taunton is because of the Pine Swamp. Building a single-track trestle through the Pine Swamp was considered but rejected back in 2013. They seem to really love single-tracking through swamps.
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As for the short section of single-track south of downtown Taunton, I'm assuming they wanted to avoid replacing the three single-track bridges over the Taunton River to save money. I have no clue why they designed so much single-track in Easton north of the Hockomock Swamp. Maybe they thought the Easton NIMBYs would find it more acceptable than double-track? Regardless, they need to fill in all of this single-track nonsense with double-track.
 
themissinglink said:
It's not explained in the FEIR, but I'm guessing that the single-track section between Raynham Park and Taunton is because of the Pine Swamp. Building a single-track trestle through the Pine Swamp was considered but rejected back in 2013. They seem to really love single-tracking through swamps.
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As for the short section of single-track south of downtown Taunton, I'm assuming they wanted to avoid replacing the three single-track bridges over the Taunton River to save money. I have no clue why they designed so much single-track in Easton north of the Hockomock Swamp. Maybe they thought the Easton NIMBYs would find it more acceptable than double-track? Regardless, they need to fill in all of this single-track nonsense with double-track.
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Doubly dubious because they said they were OK with at-grade through Pine Swamp. Well...if the embankment roadbed is already double-track width what frigging difference does single-track make anyway? There's no clearance envelope constrictions, and animal species that were duly determined to not be impeded by crossing 1 track don't suddenly get impeded by crossing 2. Once again...no explanation, just a binding decree that it must be so.

Document, document, document. That's what the do-over has to prioritize if this project is to get anywhere. You can't make rational project decisions based on no evidence given. If there's going to be conditions levied that restrict the transit capacity of the project, the Army Corps must @#$% document them...the what's, the how's, and the why's. No halfway serious effort was made to even feign an interest in doing that in 2013, which is why their report is as good as garbage.
 
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