F-Line to Dudley
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Marblehead Branch isn't state-owned...got abandoned too early for that. They do need to finish the trail on the south branch like they have the ex-Salem Branch to the north that links Marblehead with Salem State U. It's got great grade separation and preserved bridge abutments over Stetson Ave. and 1A that could get cheap wood footbridges plunked on top. This would be one of those "bipedal transit line"-level utilization paved trails because of the beach access and complete circuit access to both Salem and Swampscott. If the DMU's had the same 2 bike racks setup as the bi-level coaches are getting it's a grab-and-go trip. The only trick is striping good enough bike lanes from Lynn Common to Swampscott that the 3-mile gap between the Marblehead Branch and the Saugus Branch trails isn't totally infeasible for the more hardcore bicyclists to link.
As for layovers, most likely they could build a pocket track or two just south of Lynn station on some of the derelict freight tracks. Although would be kind of hard for a crew breakroom there because it's up on the embankment inaccessible from street level. Other option is the unused yard in front of Riverworks, which the T only uses to park work equipment when it's doing something on the Eastern Route.
West Lynn is definitely a very good growth prospect because there's so much redevelopable land between the tracks and Lynnway. And it's a regular stop on all peak hour trains and flag stop on all off-peaks, so doing something bigger with it doesn't introduce any additional stop-exclusive train congestion. Move the platform about 1000 ft. north by the disused helipad where it aligns better with the access driveway, street grid, and nearest bus stop and it can be a TOD anchor: http://goo.gl/maps/wywYr. A footbridge to the other side provides direct access to the Bike to the Sea trail and the dense residential to the north. And it's close enough to Point of Pines to be a quick bus trip and not-too-difficult walk.
Or you could go a little further up by Commercial St. and the abandoned Saugus Branch wye where the ancient West Lynn station used to be. But I think splitting the difference between Riverworks and Commercial is a little bit better for anchoring TOD, providing some token access to Point of Pines, and still adequately serving the residential if there's a path to the Caldwell Court/Bike to the Sea side.
Oak I. is not a possibility. Eastern Route's too far off-alignment on side tiny streets. It's too obscure and maze-like a walk to reach the bus. The main part of the neighborhood is an easier walk to Wonderland. Oak I.'s got to be a Blue-only stop on the extension.
East Lynn is surplus to requirement. Adding that does introduce some worries about Eastern Route throughput since South Salem/Salem State U. projects as one of the highest-ridership infills they could add anywhere on the commuter rail. So you have to assume that one's going to be in the cards and a for-sure destination for the push-pulls and potential destination for the DMU's. Since the Eastern Route already has OTP issues and is sluggish out to Beverly, it is wise to hold off on hyper-density until the Chelsea grade crossing restrictions get solved. It's enough degradation in travel time across the whole works that it exposes a little bit of risk to those clock-facing headways starting to wander a couple mins when the Chelsea bottleneck and the Western Route merge bottleneck come into play. It trims the margin for error enough that bunching of headways--12 mins. here, 18 mins. here--starts to impact the convenience. This service needs to hold to 15 pretty faithfully and not just average it amidst variance; the margins for retaining ridership @ 15 mins. are not high enough to absorb a creep-in of "B Line Syndrome" bunching.
I've posted before the problems with a Wonderland CR station being too far a walk for the transfer unable to be meaningfully shortened. No one will ride that when the walk between platforms is longer than the walk between most surface Green Line stops. They will take the bus instead.
This will not work. The out-of-service East Boston Branch is only 1.5 miles long, with end-of-track at Addison St. in Eastie on the backlot behind the Chelsea St. bridge. With a self-storage warehouse built on the ROW, so it does not link at all with the Silver Line Chelsea route and Eastie Haul Road just on the other side of the parcel that would be your Urban Ring route. The junction with the Eastern Route points the wrong direction at a sharp angle, most of it runs within a few feet of the river and 1A with hardly any room to put stations much less get people across the 1A deathtrap, most of it runs through private property owned by Global Petroleum, and the entire length of the ROW is contaminated by nasty toxic waste that would require massive amounts of EPA cleanup to send passengers down there.
It has no ridership potential, and the industrial setting--especially the toxic cleanup--makes it a particularly poor candidate. This branch is being held by Pan Am as a freight reactivation candidate for Global Petroleum; they almost got a massive overnight ethanol train started down it last year before the NIMBY's torpedoed Global's ethanol facility plans. And it's the only place in Boston where Pan Am has a mothballed freight yard it can reactivate for local truck transloading, since it sold off everything by Assembly and Brickbottom. It's a par bet to see freights again someday if some very modest Readville-esque daily use can be justified, but the passenger potential of the north/still-RR half is absolute nil.
Doesn't need it. Because the Salem tunnel, Salem single platform, and Beverly drawbridge are the traffic limiters for commuter rail all points north, and the Chelsea crossings and junction with the Western Route are limiter for the entire operation. It's total wasted capacity to have > 2 tracks in the middle. It would not buy one more headway, and crossovers are wholly adequate for a Newburyport/Rockport express to pass a DMU local. They would never get used.
Don't need to convert. That's what track berths 3 & 4 are for! Get Saugus Draw replaced with a high 4-track fixed span, widen the marsh embankment on the approach, and bend the Blue Line across 1A from the BRB&L alignment to the Eastern Route alignment after Oak I. station at this scuzzy industrial parking lot: http://goo.gl/maps/g9EpH. That's the hardest part of the Blue extension. Once you're on the Lynn side it's 4-track ROW all the way to Castle Hill Yard in Salem where CR and rapid transit can run alongside each other without any modification to the CR side other than opening up a lot more express slots to Boston. The only required widenings are Lynn station itself, and if Blue ever presses further beyond to Salem then Swampscott station and widening a couple modern-replacement rail overpasses like Chatham St. and Burill St. @ Swampscott station.
The rest of it, including the vast expanses of marsh between Swampscott and Salem, is all 4-track cut/embankment (albeit obscured in spots by vegetation overgrowth). The Eastern RR had the incredible foresight 150 years ago to overbuild its RR and overbuild all its late- 19th century grade separations to Salem as a 4-track ROW, thinking it was going to slay Boston & Maine out of business and suck up twice the traffic. It never had more than 2 thru tracks aside from freight sidings, but the whole damn thing is built for it. Even Saugus Draw, which has 4-wide abutments that could've had a second draw span added on. Really, it's just getting across the river and the T's compulsion for overly expensive stations that make Blue-Lynn a megaproject. Two-thirds of the cost is tied up just in exiting Revere. Once you're on the Lynn side of the river it's almost silly-easy to engineer. And then further extend to Salem for a later encore.
[qupote]6) Get the blue line to Salem, figure out how to send the DMUs to Danvers.[/quote]See above re: Blue-Salem. Boy or boy does getting to Lynn set things up nicely for the follow-through. Both this extension and a much more immediate explosion in Yellow Line usage across the North Shore with the Wonderland express siphoning of equipment disappearing.
North Shore/128 via Peabody Sq. is the only branching route left. The Danversport one has been claimed by the rail trail. Not that big a deal unless you've got a personal preference for Danvers, since North Shore Mall's a little bit better park-and-ride site and has *marginally* better projected ridership. The only thing the Danvers option had going for it was less costly swampland EIS'ing.
BTW...there is no trail going on the North Shore alignment. It's a power line ROW currently owned by the power company, and doesn't offer any pedestrian means of connecting to the trail on the opposite side of 128. The Danvers ROW got claimed in part because it hits Route 114, the nearest overpass of 128 to the other side. So this routing will always be available for commuter rail, and since Peabody wants that line bad they are protecting it accordingly.
Well, not really because of the above caveats. But most definitely West Lynn/Riverworks makeover should be part of the base package. That's far too juicy to pass up.
