MassDOT Rail: Springfield Hub (East-West, NNERI, Berkshires, CT-Valley-VT-Quebec)

[F-Line to Dudley]

Small batteries usually cover instances of gapping. The problem is simply the failure modes introduced by attempting that too many times in one trip. Have a lengthy cutout at every single bridge every single trip, and one of these days the power's not going to cycle back on properly because of an onboard switching failure back from battery and you have a fault stopping the train dead. Even BEMU's are only built to cycle on/off battery a few discrete times per trip. So you can't look at a corridor like the B&A with 35 maxed-out bridges Worcester-Springfield and say "Oh, duh...35 separate cutouts and you're golden." That's quite a lot many more than the NEC has with its movable bridge and phase change cutouts. Cutout hardware also costs money, and some of the bridges are so maxed out there isn't physical room for *any* contact wire above the roof of a double-stacked freight train...not even a de-energized dummy wire to maintain pantograph contact through the gap. So it's quickly chasing diminishing returns to just lean full-force into the cutouts kludge corridor-wide. It's supposed to be a last resort for the hardest-to-raise bridges, not a get-out-of-jail-free card from touching any of them.

Any way you slice it, the B&A is a shitload of bridge mods. And that's not going to pay back its costs with only 8-10 projected daily round-trips. You need a significantly denser schedule than that to amortize, and that's not going to happen immediately in any universe.

 

[Tallguy]

The Pike doesn't go anywhere near Spencer. The only place the B&A crosses the Pike is just east of Palmer, and the only other place it's even near the Pike is some particularly empty areas of Rochdale and Charlton.

On an intercity-oriented schedule, the only intermediates would be Palmer and maybe one of the Brookfields. For trips serving as supercommuter trips, I could plausibly see Ludlow, Warren, and maaaybe something near Rochdale to grab traffic off 20. No way you're putting something in western Worcester - it would be no more than 2-3 miles from Union Station.

It might technically be Charlton there. The track and like are 500ft apart. Just west of Rochdale.

 

[Tallguy]

Small batteries usually cover instances of gapping. The problem is simply the failure modes introduced by attempting that too many times in one trip. Have a lengthy cutout at every single bridge every single trip, and one of these days the power's not going to cycle back on properly because of an onboard switching failure back from battery and you have a fault stopping the train dead. Even BEMU's are only built to cycle on/off battery a few discrete times per trip. So you can't look at a corridor like the B&A with 35 maxed-out bridges Worcester-Springfield and say "Oh, duh...35 separate cutouts and you're golden." That's quite a lot many more than the NEC has with its movable bridge and phase change cutouts. Cutout hardware also costs money, and some of the bridges are so maxed out there isn't physical room for *any* contact wire above the roof of a double-stacked freight train...not even a de-energized dummy wire to maintain pantograph contact through the gap. So it's quickly chasing diminishing returns to just lean full-force into the cutouts kludge corridor-wide. It's supposed to be a last resort for the hardest-to-raise bridges, not a get-out-of-jail-free card from touching any of them.

Any way you slice it, the B&A is a shitload of bridge mods. And that's not going to pay back its costs with only 8-10 projected daily round-trips. You need a significantly denser schedule than that to amortize, and that's not going to happen immediately in any universe.

And how many drawbridges are there on NEC? And not all the 35 bridges are centered and undercut. Many of the Springfield area bridges are higher. I have the data somewhere, but would need to find it

 

[Tallguy]

A Commuter Rail station in the western part of Worcester (around here?) makes sense, but not an Amtrak stop.

Yes

 

[themissinglink]

It sucks that the new Palmer station won't be at the historic depot. I wonder where else the platform could go?

Historic station out of new Palmer rail plans, but boosters focus on getting service close to downtown

MassDOT is now doing further study and will come up with a conceptual design by spring or summer of 2025.

www.masslive.com

PALMER — There isn’t enough room at Palmer’s historic 1884 Union Station for either the new tracks or the high-level platform required of a new station for west-east rail.

It’s also located in a spot where passenger trains would interfere with CSX freight traffic, according to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and its consultants.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

It sucks that the new Palmer station won't be at the historic depot. I wonder where else the platform could go?

Historic station out of new Palmer rail plans, but boosters focus on getting service close to downtown

MassDOT is now doing further study and will come up with a conceptual design by spring or summer of 2025.

www.masslive.com

They studied several different sites. . .

Location B seems like it would be the best all around.

 

[riptide]

It sucks that the new Palmer station won't be at the historic depot. I wonder where else the platform could go?

Historic station out of new Palmer rail plans, but boosters focus on getting service close to downtown

MassDOT is now doing further study and will come up with a conceptual design by spring or summer of 2025.

www.masslive.com

The last five minutes of that public meeting (video here for anyone interested) got so heated they cut the meeting short. It was mostly a few people who were not cooperating with the prescribed means of public comment, but you could hear displeased background muttering from the crowd throughout the presentation.

Alternative B is the best option that meets Amtrak/CSX/etc’s desired optimal criteria, and considering Palmer’s only projected to have less than 20,000 riders a year, it’s probably fine. TOD, walkability, etc are not steering this ship. This is going to be a “single platform with a parking lot” kind of a station, and they can go wherever there’s roadway access.

I understand why it makes sense for MassDOT to incorporate those desired criteria into the baseline assumptions for site selection, rather than picking unnecessary fights, but there are times you really need to be able to take a step back and imagine how it’s going to look from the public’s perspective when you show them something like Alternative F (a platform in the woods, more than a quarter-mile walk down a path from the parking area) and tell them your site selection criteria indicate that’s a more viable station site than the spot where their old station building still stands. It just makes you look out of touch.

Maybe it’s a fool’s errand to even dream of asking CSX if they’d accept something less than their gold-standard 18’6” of horizontal clearance, or any of their other optimal standards. But things might have gone a little smoother at that meeting if MassDOT had acknowledged the options presented weren’t all that compelling and could say they at least attempted to find ways around the regulatory obstacles.