General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

Kind of surprised the people waiting at the stop didn't seem too concerned at all, given how close the train was to the platform.
 
jklo said:
Kind of surprised the people waiting at the stop didn't seem too concerned at all, given how close the train was to the platform.
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Especially given all the pyrotechnics as it happened. The impact on the bungalow couldn't have been very quiet either.
 
Apologies if I missed this but did they ever find out what caused the Red Line derailment?
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Hasn't been done in Greater Boston since NYNH&H on the southside 52 years ago. They split/combined Needham Heights and Millis/West Medway trains at Needham Jct. station as regular practice...also with an inconveniently long layover despite the much looser regs. But those schedules only ran RDC's for the last half-dozen years of Millis service. Before that it took a painfully time-consuming set of maneuvers around the Needham Jct. wye to get the loco-hauled trains all positioned, which was a great way of killing what was left of Millis ridership.
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It's hard to fathom even (Budd Liners?) on that old Millis/ Medfield/ Dover track with the ancient rails and all! Are you saying they ran through Dover as recently as 1967? I saw freights on that line up to the late 70's. Don't know when the last train ran out of Medfield Junction toward Dover/Needham though. i seem to remember a derailment of a switcher, GP9 or GP38 near the end of the curve at Medfield Jct where the Medfield-Neeham track meets the main siding of the Framingham track (circa 1978 ).

F-Line to Dudley said:
Amtrak does it all day every day in Albany when it swaps dual-mode locos for straight diesels...and it does that plus merges/splits the separate New York and Boston halves of the daily Lake Shore Ltd. The LSL has to endure an excruciating 30-minute Albany layover for that chore.
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Yup, it's awful. 30 minutes? maybe if all goes perfect.
 
They usually send people to a nearby restaurant in Albany, telling us to be back in an hour
 
odurandina said:
It's hard to fathom even (Budd Liners?) on that old Millis/ Medfield/ Dover track with the ancient rails and all! Are you saying they ran through Dover as recently as 1967? I saw freights on that line up to the late 70's. Don't know when the last train ran out of Medfield Junction toward Dover/Needham though. i seem to remember a derailment of a switcher, GP9 or GP38 near the end of the curve at Medfield Jct where the Medfield-Neeham track meets the main siding of the Framingham track (circa 1978 ).
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Yup...'67 for Millis, '65 for West Medway. Regular freight ran from Millis to Newton until 2005.
 
jklo said:
Kind of surprised the people waiting at the stop didn't seem too concerned at all, given how close the train was to the platform.
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I love it. Shows what kind of service standards people expect.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Yup...'67 for Millis, '65 for West Medway. Regular freight ran from Millis to Newton until 2005.
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The track continues past Millis Cliquot tho - abandoned much farther back in time… When were the last trains on that line?
 
FK4 said:
The track continues past Millis Cliquot tho - abandoned much farther back in time… When were the last trains on that line?
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Millis Depot to Bellingham Jct. was abandoned immediately after the end of passenger service to West Medway in 1965. The current end of the line at the former MA 109 grade crossing is a warehouse that used to be the last freight customer. Wasn't far enough from Medfield Jct. to retain the alternate routing from the Milford Branch at Bellingham.

We'd probably still be talking commuter rail possibilities if the line was still intact to Bellingham, because it would be a faster route to Milford/Hopedale than the Franklin Line extended out of Forge Park. But the Millis-West Medway ROW has lapsed ownership, and Medway to Bellingham is utterly obliterated by new housing.


As it currently stands, the last domino is probably set to fall as the last customer on the Millis Industrial Track, a cement company that was offloading once a week on Environmental Dr. in Millis, has switched its routings elsewhere probably never to return. There haven't been any movements on the line at all in 2019, though Bay Colony still has its locomotive parked by the Medfield Animal Hospital. They can abandon as soon as 2 years pass from the last movement and they can show the feds a paper trail or lackthereof for having no business prospects.
 
Re: Regional Rail (including North-South Rail Link)

Anyone want to comment of what came out of the Legislative Budget -- focused on the study of Blue Line to Lynn

If I was generating a hierarchy of things to do for future value to Boston Metro -- it starts with the lowest hanging fruit
  • create DTX Super Station by putting in a pedestrian connection from DTX to State
    enabling a person to enter next to Millennium Tower and access all Subway Lines
    • later other pedestrian tunnels can be installed connecting key surface points to the master DTX Concourse
  • Blue to CR @ Wonderland with Logan-style moving sidewalk fostering major developments @ both Wonderland and Suffolk Downs
  • CR to Silverline near to the Casino fostering further major development in Everett
  • Silver Line to Silver Line Way fully underground enabling Seaport Super Station and frequent service South Station to Silver Line Way
  • Blue to Red @ Charles with later Blue extensions
  • Electrify to Framingham -- a major future growth corridor with Framingham having becoming the first new city in Massachusetts in forever - later can be extended to Worcester
  • Electrify to Waltham enabling 15 minute Service of EMU
  • Blue to Lynn and eventually Salem
  • better service to Foxboro
  • get the PO out of South Station enabling both expansion of SS, redev of the area around the Fort Point Channel and Dorcester Ave [important for nascent bio / tech cluster developing near Broadway Station]

All of those should be much higher on the list than the NS link and the boondoggle of going to New Bedford and Fall River
 
Blue to Lynn, electric to Framingham and Waltham would be huge imo from a housing the metro population aspect. Framingham should have express as well. Framingham has like 3,000 apartments under construction right now within 2 miles of downtown. Waltham is too close to be so far.

Boston is NEVER going to be able to build enough affordable or regular housing to house everyone... and it doesnt have to. It has one of the oldest and most extensive rail networks in the us, its just cut in half, diesel, and old. Septa silverliners, electrification, level boarding, would change eastern MA forever. With NSRL you can even start to think of new CR stations at places like union sq transfer green, northpoint, south end, Everett/Chelsea (not by Wynn), Charlestown orange community college, medford tufts green transfer, east somerville, watertown, revere, along with west station..etc. Its so much bigger than a ride from north station to south station, let alone what it opens up for northeast corridor service to maine/nh. The feds should put up half for that reason alone. 2 states are immediately added to the northeast corridor with a 2 mile tunnel.
 
^^ This. NSRL is pretty integral to the rest of Westie's priority list.
 
Anyone else increasingly concerned about the status of AFC 2.0? It's upcoming outreach events have vanished from it's calendar and it's been quietly ditched from at least the last two FMCB meetings, after being in the agenda posted online ahead of time it's vanished on the day of and not even mentioned. And the FMCB schedule from June had it on the agenda for today's meeting, but again it's vanished from the agenda posted this morning. The last news I remember hearing was unspecified delays with the contractor and unknown length of delays... Meanwhile the MTA and the same partner have managed to roll out theirs...
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Anyone else increasingly concerned about the status of AFC 2.0? It's upcoming outreach events have vanished from it's calendar and it's been quietly ditched from at least the last two FMCB meetings, after being in the agenda posted online ahead of time it's vanished on the day of and not even mentioned. And the FMCB schedule from June had it on the agenda for today's meeting, but again it's vanished from the agenda posted this morning. The last news I remember hearing was unspecified delays with the contractor and unknown length of delays... Meanwhile the MTA and the same partner have managed to roll out theirs...
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There's another FMCB meeting today at 2, and it is also absent from this agenda.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Anyone else increasingly concerned about the status of AFC 2.0? It's upcoming outreach events have vanished from it's calendar and it's been quietly ditched from at least the last two FMCB meetings, after being in the agenda posted online ahead of time it's vanished on the day of and not even mentioned. And the FMCB schedule from June had it on the agenda for today's meeting, but again it's vanished from the agenda posted this morning. The last news I remember hearing was unspecified delays with the contractor and unknown length of delays... Meanwhile the MTA and the same partner have managed to roll out theirs...
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Agreed on the concern, but the T is using the delay to resolve fare policy/POP legal things at least. The AFC working group resumed meetings the other day and one of the things they discussed was amending the MA laws to allow for civilian enforcement and decriminalizing fare evasion. So at least while the delay is happening, they are working on the legislation so Beacon Hill can amend it.
 
Since I take the bus from Forest Hills to Roslindale, something I think the TV should do now, and should have done when they rebuilt the upper bus way, is this: since multiple bus routes go through roslindale, the bus routes should 1) emphasize this fact with a “via Ros. Sq. designation on any routes that pass through it, and 2) more importantly, group all of the bus routes that pass through the Square so that they stop in the same area in Forest Hills. A sizable proportion of people who take those routes are only using them for access to Washington Street, often the stretch between Wash and the Sq... I think this would significantly streamline passenger travel, and improve wayfinding.
 
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