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

F-Line to Dudley said:
CJ does 1115 daily boardings.
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Including a not-insignificant number of sprinters--at least 2-to-3 a week, I estimate--who you'll see doing their best Usain Bolt impression (but in full work attire, with briefcase/satchel), frantically trying to surmount the station's pedestrian overpass in order to get onto the northbound side of the tracks and onto the train before the conductor signals departure... it's like watching a Tom Cruise action movie being filmed, I suppose. Some day, I'm going to start propositioning fellow passengers with odds on whether the sprinter makes it or not!
 
There was a so-called "FRA" Extra out of South Station this morning to New Bedford and return. Followed #011 to Middleboro. Made stops at Middleboro (new station), East
Taunton, Church Street/New Bedford and New Bedford. 1061 was leading along with a new Rotem Control Car. At least one of the MBTA OCS coaches (529) was in the consist.
Guess this was a final inspection/blessing trip for the FRA.
 
themissinglink said:
www.heraldnews.com

MBTA: Unique 'shuttle service' coming to Fall River and New Bedford. How will it work?

The MBTA said when South Coast Rail starts, Fall River and New Bedford commuters will have an extra 'shuttle service.' What is it, and how's it work?
www.heraldnews.com
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If the shuttles need a whole 10 minutes of buffer to time a connection, what exactly does that say about anticipated schedule adherence of SCR trains on the Old Colony? Egad. Name one first-world transit country that needs 10 whole minutes of fudge factor to do a simple cross-platform transfer.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
If the shuttles need a whole 10 minutes of buffer to time a connection, what exactly does that say about anticipated schedule adherence of SCR trains on the Old Colony? Egad. Name one first-world transit country that needs 10 whole minutes of fudge factor to do a simple cross-platform transfer.
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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.
 
BeansTheCat said:
Does the system have timed, cross-platform transfers anywhere else?
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There are at least two. Two Providence Line trains stop at Forest Hills in the late evening for a transfer to a Forest Hills to Needham service. I'm not sure how long a buffer there is, and they are much closer to South Station. It may or may not be a comparable ops situation, but it does mean the MBTA has at least some experience with this.
 
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BeansTheCat said:
Does the system have timed, cross-platform transfers anywhere else?
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It’s not truly cross-platform but the Franklin line has a timed transfer to the Providence at Readville to get to Back Bay/Ruggles on the weekends, and that is as short as 7 mins (and even requires some walking to get down to the Providence platform). So they definitely could get it shorter, but I agree that they’re probably being cautious for the new service - hopefully the next schedule will tighten that up.
 
Photo of the pedestrian bridge from this article:
www.nytimes.com

A Guide to Living in New Bedford, Mass.

The Whaling City, home to a diverse food scene, will soon have a new rail connection to Boston.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
newbedford.png
 
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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bridge.png
 
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.
south coast rail track map.PNG
 
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?"
 
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