Any chance on a source for that Fall River reactivation news?
This Oct. 2019 Draft Design on the Tiverton Mount Hope Bay Greenway (PDF Warning, large) specifically notes that:
Press Herald has extensively covered the MassWorks grant saga. The first two tries were based on 3 customers: (1) GM, (2) a sludge transload at the sewage plant at state line end-of-track for transport to an incinerator facility, and (3) the road salt transload biz setting up on the pier up the street from GM. State thought their asking price was too high for too-fuzzy carload numbers, as they didn't have well-refined numbers for the pier transload or sludge pickups. City's trying again as now the pier owner is negotiating for wind turbine assembly rail-to-ship (similar to what Port of New London is using its rail-enabled docks for a L.I. Sound wind farm deployment), and they drew conclusion from the last rejection that the state wants them to diversify the top-line biz prospects a bit more before they commit the bottom-line resources.
Edit: in so far as I can tell, it wasn't awarded any funding in the
2012-17 IRAP rounds, or the
2018 or
2019 rounds.
2015, Borden & Remington award. That's the Port siding Gold Medal currently shares. The grant expanded storage in those tight confines so GM could go to primary railcar bulk-flour deliveries and trim its long-distance trucking shares. That's the impetus for corporate's self-reinvestment in the home siding, where they'll be able to have automated machinery empty it direct into the factory. Knocking their carload count permanently up was the prerequisite for that, so they've been in negotiation ever since the '15 award while Mass Coastal flogged the real estate at the (then-derelict) pier and City worked the sewer plant sludge angle to give it critical mass.
Right now the plan sans another MassWorks or other grant win is to accumulate small bits of funding and "donationware" hardware to build it piecemeal with no set end timetable. The salt pier (already in operation for truck off Middle St.) would be reached first 3300 ft. from end of rehabbed Port track, and not require any grade crossings to get to. GM would be second, another 4500 ft. and 3 private grade crossings. Sewer plant would be last at 2500 more feet and 1 public grade crossing at Mt. Hope Ave. Winning the grant would simply let them do it all in one shot like they want to instead of staggering it way out on installments.
That same design does however make it very clear that the preferred build alternative is rail with trail, with the trail diverging onto either low volume surface streets or onto a new alignment (CRMC greenway buffer). At any rate, this report encapsulates the environmentals of any future restoration of this segment, and as far as I can tell it's good news for future restoration. The bridges and their super and sub structures appear to be in reasonable shape from a cursory inspection, They do call out deteriorated drainage structures, which would need replaced as part of the shared use path and/or rail service; I suppose rail can sneak through early action on bike paths too. They're well into the public engagement stage at this point.
It's not "preferred"...it's
mandatory. The Tiverton study can coach rail-with-trail in whatever language it wants, but it became a federally active line again when Mass Coastal--at MassDOT's agreement--sent out 30-day reactivation notices to abutters some 3 years ago to get their parked boats off the ROW...then sent the brush-cutter through to make sure the tow trucks could get in to haul away any scofflaws on Mt. Hope. Federally-speaking it's already paper-active because the primary rights-holder has stated the intent to operate again. And thus the
only legally permissible way of making a trail is designing it for a shared-use active ROW. There are no "choices" in the matter, no matter how the study words it. So while it's good that the study is bullish on the feasibility...we have to be explicit here. There is no alternative except trail with clearance separation from presumed-active rail...no functional wiggle room whatsoever when it comes to turning shovels out of that study. Those are simply the federal preemption privileges of being the incumbent active rights-holder. MC can take as many years as they want to actually do the restoration on the installment plan, because this isn't a move that has to be adjudicated at all through the Surface Transportation Board with any public comment or holding-hands with other parties. It's strictly a 1-on-1 open file at the FRA...that they can either keep open by perpetually filing 30-day activation notices, or finalize by calling for an FRA inspection of their restored track to be blessed with go-ahead to operate. And if MC needs an assist asserting itself...P&W also has overhead rights from East Junction, Attleboro to Fall River and the state line for accessing its extant Newport rights described in previous post and can tag-team a support filing for protection of its own route.
And unlike the Cape lines where MC is on a 10-year open-bid rights renewal from the state because Conrail voluntarily sunset its ancestral preemption when it sold out in 1982, the South Coast lines were a filet dispersal from CSX in 2008: ownership direct-conveyed to MassDOT, rights direct-conveyed to MC. Meaning MC is the incumbent inheritor of all 150+ years of vestigial rights dating from CSX, Conrail, Penn Central, NYNH&H, and Old Colony. The state can't terminate them here because it wants a trail only without going in front of the federal STB and trying to prove gross negligence. That's an utter nonstarter when MC is clearly trying like hell to grow new biz on the OOS section, and has succeeded very well at growing new business on the active line. It's either that or overpay them a giant wad to GTFO and retire their rights voluntarily...but there's zero way the state can justify a one-time buyout vs. the years of revenue passed up (or get that past the local Legislative bloc who are gung-ho for this restoration).
So...rail-with-trail supervised by the line-owning states at no operating demerit (e.g. no time-of-day restrictions on freight ops so the walkers/bikers can frolic off-footprint or anything like that) is the
only build Alternative permissible. Anything other than that given lip service in the Tiverton study is a nonstarter, and window-dressing to give abutters the warm-and-fuzzies that they have more options than they actually do. A reactivation from OOS is a completely different and entirely more closed process than reactivation out of landbanking. Given that reactivation plans are already in motion to the MA state line and can take as long as they bloody feel like it to get moving, it needs to be underscored just how limited--nay, virtually singular--the trail choices are. It isn't a negotiation; it's take-it-or-leave-it with the side room available. Tiverton legally isn't any different with the RIDOT/P&W trump card, just not as immediately constricting because 30-day notices haven't been filed on that side of the border yet. I suppose some not-smart planning entity could build a "trail-in-rail's-envelope" a little clearance-carelessly and get away with it for some years there...but they're S.O.L. and out a lot of sunk-cost trail landscaping wherever clearances foul if P&W ever does file FRA notice so I also can't picture any RIDOT-supervised trail job risking getting sloppy. If this is to be a real risk-measured thing, it's going to cost the going rate of a full clearance separation on the ROW property lines. Cut corners won't be allowed period in MA where the reactivation process has already started...and would simply be ill-advised in RI.
