General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

[George_Apley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

The Haverhill line map is sobering also. Was it intended to remove all the grade crossings out to Reading when it was planned to extend the Orange Line there?

The Orange Line was going to be done via overhead wires and the grade crossings were going to be kept. This was decades ago, if they were to ever bring the OL to Reading now it would be via 3rd rail and all of the grade crossings would have to be eliminated.

 

[Riverside]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Also, note that there may be a second page, depending on how finicky Google Maps is when you look at it. It's even worse than the first page.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

The Orange Line was going to be done via overhead wires and the grade crossings were going to be kept. This was decades ago, if they were to ever bring the OL to Reading now it would be via 3rd rail and all of the grade crossings would have to be eliminated.

Not all of them. The stations that currently sit on crossings would have been sunk, Malden Ctr.-like elevated, or shifted over a block because fare control would be awfully leaky if the platform was right there. The hardest-to-eliminate crossings would've stayed under the wires, and the T would've taken I.O.U.'s to slowly pluck them off during the ensuing decades.

Agreed, though...they'll never ever allow an HRT build today without zapping all.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Not all of them. The stations that currently sit on crossings would have been sunk, Malden Ctr.-like elevated, or shifted over a block because fare control would be awfully leaky if the platform was right there. The hardest-to-eliminate crossings would've stayed under the wires, and the T would've taken I.O.U.'s to slowly pluck them off during the ensuing decades.

Agreed, though...they'll never ever allow an HRT build today without zapping all.

Ah ok. So it would have been a longer term shift, rather than today, where shifting Reading-NStation to OL would require zapping them all at once.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Ah ok. So it would have been a longer term shift, rather than today, where shifting Reading-NStation to OL would require zapping them all at once.

Yeah. Fewer frowny faces on the regs, and they knew full well it was going to be a marathon not a sprint.

Haverhill really isn't that bad north of Wilmington Jct. The one in downtown Lawrence that plows right through the freight yard sucks...not for the T but for the locals...but all others out to Plaistow are at current or former station stops and thus are pretty negligible.

Mashing the Reading and Haverhill schedules together made lots of sense in 1979 when service resumed back to Haverhill after a 3-year budgetary suspension, but they really really--at least for a goodly-sized subset of the schedule--need to strongly consider moving it back to the Lowell Line so the Reading shuttle puts appropriate load on its surroundings and Haverhill gets cut under an hour with less than half the crossing gauntlet.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

That map is insane. If anyone ever wonders why the Fitchburg line takes so long, or why the Providence line is so effective, show them that map.

Few comments about crossings that 'matter' and crossings that don't.

-- The ones at Riverworks on the Eastern Route and Wilmington station on the Lowell Line are private crossings for industrial driveways. Limited liability, trains up to Class 7/125 MPH are speed-unrestricted, private owners have to offset the cost of crossing protection. They don't count as 'real' crossings unless you're talking HSR.

-- The branchlines are not a big deal. Newburyport, Rockport, Plymouth, Greenbush, Needham, Stoughton. Even the Milford Branch cluster at the tail end of the Franklin, since that technically is a branch off a main whose other branches are all passenger-inactive. It is zero constraint for the trains since the off-main lines don't support schedules dense enough to screw with anything. Plymouth does just spiffy despite the "Whoa!" it looks like on a map.

-- EXCEPTION: Stoughton is going to have a LOT of crossings through Easton if extended, before thinning out in Raynham. Only the former Route 138 one in Raynham gets an elimination. Fine if it terminates in Taunton as a branch. But...Reason #467 why South Coast FAIL is defective by design. It contributes to the weak-sauce schedules on the outermost branches, albeit not as much as the single tracking.

-- The Southside is spot-on perfect eliminating all inside 128 where the urban density is most problematic. As originally built, it is spot-on perfect eliminating all to the first junction on each line before they start gradually appearing. Worcester to former Brookline Jct., Riverside Jct. Natick Jct.; Franklin to former Islington Jct. and (almost) to Norwood Jct. and Walpole Jct.; the ex-B&P main to Needham Jct.; the Old Colony to ex-Milton Jct., East Braintree Jct., and Braintree Jct., Fairmount to Readville Jct. The ex-B&L and ex-Eastern RR mains on the Northside ain't bad either. ex-Eastern Route from the Eastie docks to Chelsea Jct. (ex- east half of the B&A Grand Junction Branch before the Eastern got re-routed on it to new North Station); Lowell Line to ex-Somerville Jct. where the original Central Mass forked off. It's really just the ex-Fitchburg RR and the original B&M on the Western Route where they didn't get that memo. And remember...both halves of the Grand Junction were built as branches, so were never intended to carry mainline traffic requiring total separation.

-- Crossings near the 495 belt and beyond don't go through nearly enough density to matter. You'll note how the Old Colony main is almost crossing-free until it hits Bridgewater (note: there were THREE branches forking off in Randolph, Brockton, and West Bridgewater so the traffic had thinned out where the southerly clusters start appearing.

-- The Fitchburg is in a separate category because it's a main with (not any more) branches. Lexington and Watertown Branches only went through Park St. and Sherman St. Central Mass only went through those and Beaver St. None of those branches are coming back. Except for the Waltham Ctr. pair which (like Framingham) is horrifically difficult to eliminate because of the abutting bodies of water the inside-128 ones don't cross any primary thoroughfares. The outside-128 ones go through pretty low density, and higher-density Leominster-Wachusett has zero. The first one west of Wachusett is in Royalston. And fewer than 10 of negligible significance out to the Vermonter in Greenfield. There is only 1 schedule of moderate load to juggle. They really don't need to do any eliminations here except for Park St. should GLX get extended to Porter and Sherman should GLX ever go to the Watertown Branch. Even for a 128 'Fairmounting'. Waltham Ctr. of course an impossible because of the problem of elevating from a cut overpassed by roads to an rail bridge overpassing roads in too-short distance and the Charles banks groundwater preventing a further sunk cut. And keep in mind, if they want express service to bulk up Fitchburg intercity on a faster schedule (assuming they're willing to concede lighter schedule between 128 and Littleton)...it's 12 crossings only to Willows Jct. if you take the Lowell Line and an upgraded Stony Brook Branch (none consequential except for West Medford).


---------------------------------------


For my money, these are the ones that are terror-threat level constrictions and need ASAP elimination.

-- Chelsea cluster, Eastern Route. Eastern Ave. and Everett Ave. are the literal difference between 25 MPH and 60 MPH between the Mystic Bridge and ex-Chelsea Jct. 3rd Ave. can be outright closed today. 2nd Ave. and Spruce are negligible for commuter rail and fine to leave for now, but easy road bridgings at probably <$10M a pop to do when it's Urban Ring time. And Chelsea...well, have to concede that one because of overhead Route 1 and an underground small stream, but it's at a station stop for all modes current and future at low-traffic intersection so it is fine to keep.

-- West Medford pair, Lowell Line. Bad speed restriction. Car traffic so fucked up it requires a staffed crossing tender dawn-to-dusk. Lowell Line has immense untapped capacity constrained only by these crossings (assuming a signal system + speed limit upgrade). Total public grade separation to North Chelmsford Jct. = future speeds as high as 125 MPH with how high-speed its few curves are designed.

That's it. Those are the ones holding the system back AND inducing endless traffic pain and road dangers. Nothing else matters until these are gone.



Easy/free closures (if NIMBY's can be tasered):
-- Montserrat station sandwich, Rockport Line. Closing Spring St. crossing is the only way you can get a regulation 800 ft. platform here to open all-doors. Otherwise this has to stay at 450 ft.

-- 3rd Ave. Everett, Eastern Route. Glorified driveway with each side of the crossing being separate worlds. Unneeded.

-- Gloucester station blind curve, Rockport Line. Extremely dangerous sightlines (albeit at low speed because of the curve) on Maplewood Ave., Willow St., Cedar St., Cleveland St. Willow and Cedar should get cut because they're side streets. Doubt you could get it past the NIMBY's, though.

Several others unnecessary if the state really wanted to crack down, but few t have enough negative impacts to matter much.



Priorities for other reasons:

-- Ashland pair, Worcester Line. Not a problem for the trains, but fucks up downtown Ashland traffic big. And they'll be suffering with the CR schedule increases, probable major Amtrak presence, and freight to Framingham. They're amenable to a rail overpass, which would be kinda expensive but straightforward to engineer and not all that invasive. If fed money will stimulus it for the nat'l projects, it's a quality-of-life gesture they really should do.



Impossibles:
-- Framingham Jct. pair + dependent crossings. Can't be sunk because of the aqueduct, as much as Framingham NIMBY's are demanding that. Can be overpassed at half-$B expense with shrieking NIMBY's to contend with. Any overpass must also elevate Framingham Jct. and include 2 more overpasses of 135 and Blandon Ave. on the Framingham Secondary. That's 4 bridges and and about a mile's worth of earthen embankment to construct on 2 active lines. Crossings not a factor for any trains because it's an all-schedules (incl. all current + potential Amtrak) station stop, so not worth doing until you're talking HSR (and even then...yuck). MassDOT's got its own plans to sink 135 under 126 in a duck-under, which takes care of the worst of the traffic. I think we're gonna have to learn to live with this.

-- Waltham Ctr. pair. As mentioned, too little space to incline-up from the nearby underpasses overhead. Too close to the Charles to sink without it flooding into a canal several times a year. Only way to do this is if the Red Line somehow came out here and the Fitchburg were diverted around Waltham on the ex-Central Mass ROW. Rapid transit would be able to incline steep enough to overpass.

-- Chelsea station, Eastern Route. As mentioned...1 is overhead, underground river prevents sinking. No biggie.

I know people really see these as problems and want them gone, but there's no way to do it without designing some Rube Goldberg contraption that makes things worse or by nuking the surroundings from orbit and making things worse. Move on...ain't gonna happen in our children's lifetimes.



Incidental/coincidental eliminations:

-- 2nd Ave., Spruce St, Eastern Route. As mentioned, perfunctory to-do's for UR BRT/LRT.

-- Park St. Somerville, Fitchburg Line. Perfunctory to-do if GLX extended to Porter.

-- Andover St. Lawrence, Haverhill Line. Not a T project with any CR impacts and not a terribly high-volume road, but if that Pan Am freight yard keeps growing by leaps and bounds that's gonna be a very dangerous one worth overpassing with a road bridge. Funding would come from freight projects or other non-T sources.

-- Congress St., Beverly. Non-factor for CR or road traffic since a side street, but if Beverly Draw is replaced with a higher span this one is a project dependency must get rail-overpassed by pure laws of physics.

-- All Reading Line crossings. If Orange-Reading goes on the table.



Nice-to-haves, surplus to a requirement, or to-be-filed away for some decade where the funding flows freely:

-- Norwood Depot, Franklin Line. Slow-speed at station stop, but has been scene of multiple fatal ped and car accidents because people take the intersection without looking. Elevating tracks would KO Norwood Depot stop, so only way to make it palatable is to build a garage at Norwood Central and turn the Depot lots over to the city. Norwood likes its two stops, and there has to be a good reason to consolidate with the ridership. Eliminating would totally grade-separate Franklin out to Walpole Jct. (nice for freight and Foxboro branching).

-- Norfolk and Franklin Jct., Franklin Line. For total mainline grade separation if branching to Woonsocket + Milford + Foxboro. Probably not necessary.

-- Route 1A pair, Beverly Jct. Both branches cross 1A a few feet after the split. Yucky setup, but at branchline schedules. Newburyport side has more elimination upside if line extended to Portsmouth.



Freight-only priorities (i.e. funding comes from non-passenger sources):

-- 135 + 126 + Claflin St. + Waushakum St. cluster, CSX-Framingham yard lead (freight-only). Off the other 135 crossing west of Framingham station that links to the seldom-used south yard. They can zap this whole cluster by reopening the old lead track from the Framingham Secondary and consolidating ops. State has formally proposed this. CSX hasn't bit because that yard's currently unused except for storing empties, but it might go on the table if they expand in Framingham or sell North Yard to the city for redevelopment and move those ops to the unused yard.

-- This monstrosity on Route 9 Framingham, Fitchburg Secondary (freight-only). Dear God, it's used 6 days a week by a big-ass CSX freight in the middle of the afternoon and doesn't even have gates! I don't care if Northborough/Leominster commuter rail is decades away...kill it with fire!

 

[BostonUrbEx]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

I think it would be incredibly awesome to eliminate the Needham crossings with a trench starting down by the wye and going all the way up to the last station and then inclining back to normal. And then put a bike path over the trench. This would also allow for Green Lining and Orange Lining in the future.

 

[Matthew]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Crossing elimination is expensive (and honestly, should be footed by the highway dept: the rails were there first. Even Moses thought so.). Why do we suck so much at making safe grade crossings? The Japanese seem to do quite well with tons of grade crossings and much much higher levels of service on the rail lines. Surely we could learn a thing or two?

 

[jass]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Crossing elimination is expensive (and honestly, should be footed by the highway dept: the rails were there first. Even Moses thought so.). Why do we suck so much at making safe grade crossings? The Japanese seem to do quite well with tons of grade crossings and much much higher levels of service on the rail lines. Surely we could learn a thing or two?

Agreed, MBTA should put up a fence and say "deal with it"

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

I think it would be incredibly awesome to eliminate the Needham crossings with a trench starting down by the wye and going all the way up to the last station and then inclining back to normal. And then put a bike path over the trench. This would also allow for Green Lining and Orange Lining in the future.

Green Line doesn't need the eliminations. LRT is designed to work just fine in that setting.

Orange they don't have to do anything...it's been grade separated out to Needham Jct. for 100 years.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Crossing elimination is expensive (and honestly, should be footed by the highway dept: the rails were there first. Even Moses thought so.). Why do we suck so much at making safe grade crossings? The Japanese seem to do quite well with tons of grade crossings and much much higher levels of service on the rail lines. Surely we could learn a thing or two?

Because NIMBY's. And town Boards of Selectmen dominated by NIMBY's. And idiot drivers who think they have the right of way--and right to text, jabber on a phone, not look at the road--no matter how completely and thoroughly they get smushed trying it. And liability laws that take the RR to the cleaners every time there's a Darwin Awards Winner flagrantly breaking the law.


I like what NY State does. The (10?) DOT regions in the state each have to submit a list of a few priority crossing closures to enact every decade. Now, 95% of that quota gets taken care of by abandonments because every little industrial spur that goes dead and has a public crossing paved over counts towards that goal. But it's what's helped LIRR push through its hugely expensive crossing eliminations because NYC/LI flat-out don't have any paper transactions or easy ones left to cash in. And it's helped close down a lot of superfluous side street crossings on the Empire Corridor without NIMBY bitching and moaning because the state's well-motivated with these "freebies" to beat the opposition back with a stick. That corridor is very quickly getting pared down to the most essential thoroughfare crossings...which are all going to get upgraded to max-protection quad gates before speeds hit 100 anywhere west of Albany.

We need that, because there's quite a few utterly frivolous ones that can be outright closed. Like 3rd Ave. Everett or those three I identified on the Rockport Line. We wouldn't want to go too far overboard on the branches cutting every non-thoroughfare because it really isn't that big a deal and some inocuous ones do have traffic ripple effects. But the inmates run the asylums here, so don't you dare slice in half my tree-lined residential street that has so few cars the kids play hockey in the street all day!


Other than the fed-funded eliminations on the NEC in Sharon and Attleboro during the 80's and early 90's (most of which were just closures of the last NIMBY-holdout side streets and private crossings), Massachusetts hasn't done a crossing elimination on an active line (the Hingham "fuck you, T" tunnel doesn't count) since B&M paid its own way to sink Waverly and elevate Winchester Ctr. in the late-50's. So...basically, there has NEVER been a state-funded elimination that involved anything put plopping jersey barriers blocking the streets on a couple disused private crossings or non-thru roads with no adjacent residents. And that tells you about all you need to know about the political will here. Check the North Shore Transit Improvements for the Eastern Ave. road bridge...it isn't very expensive at all. And that one sets the high bar for the Chelsea cluster because it's a busy 4-lane road...the other 'possibles' are all <$10M a pop.


The one thing MA has been very GOOD at, though, is upgrading crossing protection. The 3 Old Colony Lines, Newburyport, the Forge Park extension, and the late-80's rebuilt Needham Line are all-modern crossings. They're replacing most of them on the Fitchburg and outer Haverhill, all of them on the Vermonter, and most of them on the Cape right now. As well as for the Patriot Corridor and giving money to some of the cash-strapped shortlines to put up flashers and/or gates on most of their unprotected crossings. They've allocated money to upgrade the Framingham gates. They've allocated money to gate the Grand Junction through Cambridge. They're doing traffic signal preemption at many of them (although that's always town decision, and most kick/scream/refuse to let their greens get shortened by 1 second even if there's a fucking gate there that induces a worse traffic jam). They could do a lot of good in Chelsea and West Medford at alleviating the speed restrictions if they sprung for pricier quad gates, but they're still being obtuse about that.

But, really...there is no give any longer with some of these eliminations. Funding or no they HAVE to install the best protection money can buy at the un-eliminables (Framingham, Waltham) and all the top elimination targets they can't fund right now(ALL of the Chelsea cluster, West Medford, Ashland). And they have to get the ball rolling on elimination planning in the places like Ashland and Chelsea where it's easy to do and the community supports it, or Medford where it's not easy but the crossings fuck up the neighborhood so bad the community still supports it pain and all. And have to convert a few of those suburban closures into successes and put their foot down around NIMBY's...at least with a conversion rate comparable to MassHighway, which can sometimes say "no, we're doin' this" for the locals' own good and have it actually come true.

 

[Matthew]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Better protection equipment is good, and if the elimination is easy, fine.

But I just can't help but think some of this is provincialism. Everybody thinks that their two-bit town has the "busiest" street and that the 2-3 times an hour the gates are down are the "worst congestion in the world." And if the state's handing out money for nothing, then of course they want a piece. Hey, it comes out of the transit pool -- so those "dirty, heathen city dwellers" will get less of it!

I really don't think the pitiful frequencies and speeds on the commuter rail today, or in the foreseeable future, justify spending tens of millions of dollars on grade separations. Get better gates, sure. Signal preemption (why would anyone be opposed to this? yikes). Cameras with vision software that can detect intrusions and automatically alert oncoming trains. Those are cost-effective solutions.

But unless a corridor is hosting high speed rail, or the road is an actual highway, or it's for some reason easy to separate, why spend so much for so little benefit?

 

[BostonUrbEx]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Green Line doesn't need the eliminations. LRT is designed to work just fine in that setting.

Orange they don't have to do anything...it's been grade separated out to Needham Jct. for 100 years.

I was thinking along the lines of Green and Orange meeting at Needham Center, rather than Orange to Needham Junction.

Would the Green Line need regular traffic signals? A regular railroad crossing? Also, assuming it makes up half the frequency on the main trunk of the D Line, you'd be going through every 10 minutes in each direction during peak. It's a little different since it's not running alongside traffic as with every other Green Line intersection. So I'm not sure how that works out.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

I was thinking along the lines of Green and Orange meeting at Needham Center, rather than Orange to Needham Junction.

Would the Green Line need regular traffic signals? A regular railroad crossing? Also, assuming it makes up half the frequency on the main trunk of the D Line, you'd be going through every 10 minutes in each direction during peak. It's a little different since it's not running alongside traffic as with every other Green Line intersection. So I'm not sure how that works out.

Orange doesn't need to go that far. I don't even think the state ever formally proposed taking it west of 128 through Hersey and Junction when it was flirting with the extension. Needham-proper needs frequencies more than it needs seating capacity, so a 6-car OL train every 5 mins. on-peak is ridiculous overkill west of 128. And a would-be 128 station is flawed itself by only using that capacity at the two weekday commute peaks; those trains will be almost empty off-peak and weekends with the inability to build any all-day TOD at the park-and-ride site. Therefore West Roxbury is the western extent of the 'normal' all-day ridership curve, 128 would have to be a later phase they study more carefully to make sure they don't waste one, and Hersey and Junction are a total waste of seating. Junction, Center, Heights, Highlands/128, and Upper Falls have robust all-day walk-up because of the above-average density and pedestrians but lower per-trip boardings (except for 128 at the two commute spikes, since that'll be a park-and-ride). So a 2-car LRV at 7-10 minutes peak-most, 10-12 minutes midday, and 20 well off-peak and weekends does it. And is far easier to fine-tune the schedule as-needed than short-turning every other OL trains at W. Rox on the off-peak because those trains are nearly empty.


As for traffic control...Needham LRT would be signaled like the D since it's a separated ROW. Traffic lights adequate for the crossings, although many modern LRT systems do gates + signals. Most use stock RR gates, although because the FRA isn't involved they're free to use less industrial-strength equipment that can raise or lower faster. Unlike the surface branches where the road signals have to either be intentionally signal-prioritized or else ignorant of the trolleys these crossing signals can be fired by central dispatch through the GL signal system as if they were their own block signals. Which makes them very much more seamless to the trains.

If they ever think about doing this here or elsewhere you'll probably see them first retrofit the two Mattapan crossings as a test lab for the technology.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Better protection equipment is good, and if the elimination is easy, fine.

But I just can't help but think some of this is provincialism. Everybody thinks that their two-bit town has the "busiest" street and that the 2-3 times an hour the gates are down are the "worst congestion in the world." And if the state's handing out money for nothing, then of course they want a piece. Hey, it comes out of the transit pool -- so those "dirty, heathen city dwellers" will get less of it!

I really don't think the pitiful frequencies and speeds on the commuter rail today, or in the foreseeable future, justify spending tens of millions of dollars on grade separations. Get better gates, sure. Signal preemption (why would anyone be opposed to this? yikes). Cameras with vision software that can detect intrusions and automatically alert oncoming trains. Those are cost-effective solutions.

But unless a corridor is hosting high speed rail, or the road is an actual highway, or it's for some reason easy to separate, why spend so much for so little benefit?

It is provincialism, but it's also the U.S. having so much more distracted drivers than elsewhere. And the laws that give the towns carte blanche over signal preemption. On the Springfield Line CTDOT even installed real signal preemption on the treacherous West Hartford crossings back in the 90's. And the town came in only weeks later and disabled them. Town routes...state has no recourse to stop that shit. The laws are completely ass-backwards. One of the dumbest NIMBY fights in recent memory was in South Acton where they tried to delay construction of the upgraded grade crossings over--seriously--the AASHTO-regulated crossing signs being "out of character with the historic nature of downtown". It's fucking federal law! You must have crossbucks, you must have an approach sign (now has to be neon for new installations, not just yellow), you must paint the crossing approach on the road for bicyclists. Full-stop...no historic replicas or waivers. I mean...Jesus!

Ans still, MA is relatively tame about this since the commuter trains never left most of the lines in highest density areas. Go to CT and see how many crossing accidents they have and drivers flagrantly evading the gates. The Springfield Line, New Milford, Danbury, and Waterbury are utterly ridiculous for this Darwin Awards behavior. Metro North ends up pancaking a car or truck almost once a year. They only seem to show a modicum of respect on the Shoreline, out of habit. But all of those crossings are quad-gated because that's the regs for Class 7/125 MPH. And thankfully the FRA isn't a bastard about full separation at those speed limits, because it's a grandfathered reg from before the last lingering NYC-DC crossings in 125 MPH territory that didn't get eliminated until circa- '85-90.


And I agree...outside of the max pain threshold ones like Chelsea cluster and West Medford (all-mode traffic problems), Lawrence Yard (freight growth), and that batshit-unsafe Route 9 freight crossing in Framingham...there's no need to eliminate anything in MA. Maybe close some of the excessive side streets just to cut down on the costs of maintaining seldom-used crossings and lowering the town's liability for emergency vehicles...but even those (e.g. Rockport's excess) have a clear line in the sand in how much elimination is worth fighting for. Framingham et al are just going to have to learn to live with it, and only places like Ashland that will get heavy doses of CR, intercity, and freight are worth--to a degree--charitable due diligence as an economic justice consideration. I mean, it's not like any line other than Worcester-Springfield and Lowell with the West Med and Ashland zappings are anyone's wildest-future candidates for 125 MPH or greater. There's nothing else with crossings that'll top 80 or 90 (though I'm hard-pressed to find any other lines tangent enough to do 90 with station spacing wide enough for a CR train to actually hit full track speed for meaningful length).

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/movies/MBCR+Maps+(2010).pdf

Full kitchen-sink MBCR, NEC Shoreline, and terminal track maps showing every damn platform, platform type, signal, interlocking, bridge, public and private grade crossing, and siding at every milepost.

Go track engineer nerd-crazy with this thing.

 

[BostonUrbEx]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/movies/MBCR+Maps+(2010).pdf

Full kitchen-sink MBCR, NEC Shoreline, and terminal track maps showing every damn platform, platform type, signal, interlocking, bridge, public and private grade crossing, and siding at every milepost.

Go track engineer nerd-crazy with this thing.

Ah, one of my favorite files. I've been looking everywhere for it.


As for OL to Needham... you could still short-turn half the the runs at Forest Hills. And then you're also set up to eventually give Needham full blown service if they take advantage of the OL and add on to their dense main road along the line.

 

[BostonUrbEx]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

BTW, I met MBTA GM Beverly Scott today. She thinks the #1 priority is... South Station expansion. Now, I think it's important primarily for intercity purposes, but making it your top priority? Yeesh. I'm happy to report, however, she rolls her eyes at South Coast Snail! She doesn't think anyone is going to be willing to put forward $2billion in funding for it, even if it's 50/50 state/feds. That said, she thinks it is important, and that the South Coast will suffer greatly without eventual service. She believes they should start with bus service, as a part of phasing in better service. Once bus ridership reaches a certain point, it is time to push rail in, making it more cost effective from the get-go.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Does that SStation expansion include preparations for a Link?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Does that SStation expansion include preparations for a Link?

No. Because there's nothing to prepare other than making sure the thin strip of storefronts that go on Dot Ave. afterwards don't become a strip of ridiculously tall but thin office towers with pilings deep in the earth (rather unlikely). The Link station would be so far underground at this point that it'll bore straight under small building foundations and so far offset from the rest of the station that it'll straddle Dot Ave. to steer away from existing pilings and slot between other underground tunnels. They only have one trajectory that'll work with how crowded it is down there, and that's it. The approach tunnels merge way back in Cabot Yard and burrow under existing tracks to get there from the portals. There probably will be few surface impacts at all at the station given the depth, with most of the visible activity occurring near Cabot where the underground lead tunnels merge.


They have more to prepare for with SS if this mythical recurring tower-on-air-rights idea ever comes to a fruition and covers the existing terminal with deep piling bores. But even that wouldn't do anything to the Link because it's on the opposite side.