General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

An interesting discovery I made in March: a single pole from the old Gladstone Loop is still intact:
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The loop was actually a small yard, located in what is now a wooded area north of Suffolk Downs station. It was built in 1930 (along the existing Orient Heights–Revere Beach streetcar line) and was in use until 1952. It's been heavily reclaimed by nature; the undergrowth was not easy to navigate even in winter. Only the pole, a few feet of rail laying around, and hints of the embankment of the Revere Beach line gave any clue to its former use. Here's what the loop looked like in the late 1930s, with the 1935-built spur to Suffolk Downs at left.

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Pretty crazy to see how devoid of trees so many areas were back then compared to today. That spot to the right of suffolk downs is damn near a little forest today. Ive actually done a little bit of reading on reforestation in new england and its actually reforested a massive amount. The vast majority came about by just leaving the areas alone and letting them grow naturally. Pretty cool.
 
That's on the Beachmont end of the off-street ROW, which is the line of trees about 100 feet past the Blue Line at the lower left corner. The yard was right at the Suffolk Downs end.
 
bakgwailo said:
NTSB has a report on the fatal door malfunction on the Red Line:

RRD22LR008.aspx

www.ntsb.gov www.ntsb.gov
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A one-off fault that could not be reproduced on any other cars of any generation in the whole fleet after inspection. Maybe this should be stickied on top of the New Orange/Red Cars thread when somebody feels like jumping to alarmist conclusions. :rolleyes:
 
If the Orange Line was extended from Forest Hills to Roslindale Village (but not any further), would the OL station likely be a center platform? Or two side platforms?
 
themissinglink said:
If the Orange Line was extended from Forest Hills to Roslindale Village (but not any further), would the OL station likely be a center platform? Or two side platforms?
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I would assume center platform would the preference unless there was some engineering infeasibility. because it makes operations a lot easier. Trains can just turn around at the platform rather than having to pull beyond the platform, change ends, and then reverse. This also means that the bridge over
Wonderland and North Station are the only stub-ended termini on the system with side platforms on the system today (Although Cleveland Circle is functionally operated stub-end most of the time). At North Station it's not feasible to have a center platform.

Leaving that aside though, I have a hard time seeing why Roslindale Village would be the last stop. Unlike GLX, OLX would be a replacement for the Needham CR, so replacing as much of it as possible would pretty much be a requirement. Roslindale Village as the last stop would almost certainly require a new bridge over Robert Street anyway for storage, and going all the way to West Roxbury (or 128) would "only" require double-tracking another bridge at Lagrange Street. Other users on this board are more knowledgeable than I am, but I believe all of the road bridges over the Needham are already two tracks wide.
 
737900er said:
Leaving that aside though, I have a hard time seeing why Roslindale Village would be the last stop. Unlike GLX, OLX would be a replacement for the Needham CR, so replacing as much of it as possible would pretty much be a requirement. Roslindale Village as the last stop would almost certainly require a new bridge over Robert Street anyway for storage, and going all the way to West Roxbury (or 128) would "only" require double-tracking another bridge at Lagrange Street. Other users on this board are more knowledgeable than I am, but I believe all of the road bridges over the Needham are already two tracks wide.
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I agree that the Orange Line should eventually go past Roslindale Village all the way to West Roxbury (or VFW Parkway), but that would be a bigger undertaking compared to a one-stop extension because it would necessitate the outright replacement of the Needham Line. Extending the OL to Roslindale Village should be possible while retaining Needham Line service and could be completed much sooner than a GL/OL replacement for the Needham Line. Roslindale's transit needs are greater than West Roxbury's or Needham's; it would be ideal to extend the Orange Line to Roslindale Village ASAP and follow up with the full Needham Line replacement project not too long after.
 
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Doing three tracks(and at least 1 platform)in that ROW will be tight(and probably expensive).
 
737900er said:
Leaving that aside though, I have a hard time seeing why Roslindale Village would be the last stop. Unlike GLX, OLX would be a replacement for the Needham CR, so replacing as much of it as possible would pretty much be a requirement. Roslindale Village as the last stop would almost certainly require a new bridge over Robert Street anyway for storage, and going all the way to West Roxbury (or 128) would "only" require double-tracking another bridge at Lagrange Street. Other users on this board are more knowledgeable than I am, but I believe all of the road bridges over the Needham are already two tracks wide.
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FH to W. Rox was full double-track to the 1950's and FH-Rozzie was tri-track in the early 20th c. because of a freight house @ Rozzie Square. Robert St. and Lagrange lost their extra bridge decks after the line was singled, but the abutments are still tri- @ Robert and double- @ Lagrange.

The 1911-built Needham Cutoff between W. Rox and Needham Junction was always single-track except for the two passing sidings, though all of the bridges excepting Route 128 were built with double-track abutments and/or spacing. But OLX is probably not going past VFW Parkway.

Tallguy said:
Doing three tracks(and at least 1 platform)in that ROW will be tight(and probably expensive).
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You could save a little money by doing the Needham Line single-track platform offset a little behind the Citizens Bank and municipal parking lot, and leaving the OLX platform centered at the current station. But overall I agree...it's probably better to do the whole extension in one package.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
You could save a little money by doing the Needham Line single-track platform offset a little behind the Citizens Bank and municipal parking lot, and leaving the OLX platform centered at the current station. But overall I agree...it's probably better to do the whole extension in one package.
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I've always assumed that an OLX +1 to Rozzie Square would involve eliminating the Needham Line stop altogether, in part because it is tight, and more to the point, because Needham will eventually all be replaced by OLX + GLX2.0. Why bother to retain commuter rail service in Roslindale once the Orange Line is there?
 
HenryAlan said:
I've always assumed that an OLX +1 to Rozzie Square would involve eliminating the Needham Line stop altogether, in part because it is tight, and more to the point, because Needham will eventually all be replaced by OLX + GLX2.0. Why bother to retain commuter rail service in Roslindale once the Orange Line is there?
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This was how I was imagining it, an outright replacement of Commuter Rail service at Roslindale Village, while retaining a single CR track (minus the platform) for the rest of the Needham Line.

My line of thinking was that a +1 extension to Roslindale would take a massive amount of pressure off of the many bus routes that travel the stretch of Washington Street between Forest Hills and Roslindale Village, and was therefore higher priority than OLX to West Roxbury or a GLX to Needham.

However, I can definitely see that it would be optimal to build the extension all in one go to cut down on cost and complexity. The only downside would be that Roslindale would have to wait somewhat longer for an Orange Line stop, even though it badly needs it.

bus duplication.PNG
 
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I hope that there is an OLX. After all, the RL was extended in each direction, the GL was extended, but none yet for the Blue Line or the Orange Line. But I think that it'll be at least 3 stops instead of just one. :unsure:
 
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