MBTA Commuter Rail (Operations, Keolis, & Short Term)

[HenryAlan]

My bad.

But even without a bus between the two stations, the proposed train shuttle between M'boro and the cape seems totally fine. It doesn't seem to create new problems, and I can't come up with a passenger for whom this is a bad solution.

There might be a very small number of SCR passengers wanting to transfer to the Flyer, but they can do that in Brockton.

 

[Teban54]

T’s commuter rail adding late night, peak service

THE MBTA’S commuter rail service operator is preparing to expand service this fall, adding late-night departures from Boston and more trains during peak

commonwealthmagazine.org

 

[Riverside]

"On the Providence-Stoughton Line, the last train will now depart Boston at 11:55 p.m., 55 minutes later than the current schedule."

T’s commuter rail adding late night, peak service

THE MBTA’S commuter rail service operator is preparing to expand service this fall, adding late-night departures from Boston and more trains during peak

commonwealthmagazine.org

Hail the return of the midnight train to Providence!

Looks like the schedules aren't posted yet, but will be fun to dig into them.

 

[Blue Line to Lynn]

Hail the return of the midnight train to Providence!

Looks like the schedules aren't posted yet, but will be fun to dig into them.

Schedules are up as of now in PDF form on the T's website, dig away!

 

[jklo]

Schedules are up as of now in PDF form on the T's website, dig away!

Hmm... The Worcester Line, seemingly added a Peak Framingham local in addition to trading in h2h for a Worcester local.

 

[Java King]

They didn't add any trains to Greenbush. I very much appreciate the effort to add later trains, however they just spaced them out with longer headways in the evening.

Spring Schedule:

New Fall Schedule:

Wow! 2.5 hour headways after 6:23pm train. That's some major inconvenience gaps in the schedule in my opinion. I always hear about the Commuter Rail having 1-hour headways on most lines, but this seems like a major setback for departure options after 6:23pm. I would very much appreciate an additional 7:45 pm option, and I can live with the large gap between 8:55pm and 11:20pm. (Adding a train around 7:45 pm would at least get closer to 1-hour promised headways in the evening!)

 

[nbcoram]

Wow! 2.5 hour headways after 6:23pm train. That's some major inconvenience gaps in the schedule in my opinion. I always hear about the Commuter Rail having 1-hour headways on most lines, but this seems like a major setback for departure options after 6:23pm. I would very much appreciate an additional 7:45 pm option, and I can live with the large gap between 8:55pm and 11:20pm. (Adding a train around 7:45 pm would at least get closer to 1-hour promised headways in the evening!)

I wonder if Greenbush-Braintree shuttle trains in regular service, via the wye, could be theoretically possible to fill in some of the gaps (perhaps same with the other Old Colony lines to Braintree). The Old Colony single tracking must make scheduling a nightmare; this could be a good way to provide more service. The idea of having to change trains for some runs will definitely ruffle some feathers, but it's better than a giant gap in service.

Of course, this idea would be a lot more feasible if the Red Line ran at anywhere near normal speed and frequency, making transfers much less dependent on the timeliness of two infrequent commuter rail trains.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I wonder if Greenbush-Braintree shuttle trains in regular service, via the wye, could be theoretically possible to fill in some of the gaps (perhaps same with the other Old Colony lines to Braintree). The Old Colony single tracking must make scheduling a nightmare; this could be a good way to provide more service. The idea of having to change trains for some runs will definitely ruffle some feathers, but it's better than a giant gap in service.

Of course, this idea would be a lot more feasible if the Red Line ran at anywhere near normal speed and frequency, making transfers much less dependent on the timeliness of two infrequent commuter rail trains.

Braintree's a poorly laid-out station for attempting remotely quick Red-CR transfers. The CR platform is pretty far north of the RL station, and it takes a 600-1300 ft. weather-unprotected walk off the CR platform to even reach the rapid transit headhouse entrance, let alone the Red platforms. It gets very little utilization for that purpose today when Quincy Center is available on a very quick and weather-protected upstairs/downstairs transfer (I've used QC transfer myself to save some cash on boarding/alighting at a Zone 1A stop instead of the extra terminal fare). So given that these are pretty low-leverage filler slots being off-peak non- run-thrus, their utility is dulled further by Braintree's relatively long transfer penalty.

 

[nbcoram]

Braintree's a poorly laid-out station for attempting remotely quick Red-CR transfers. The CR platform is pretty far north of the RL station, and it takes a 600-1300 ft. weather-unprotected walk off the CR platform to even reach the rapid transit headhouse entrance, let alone the Red platforms. It gets very little utilization for that purpose today when Quincy Center is available on a very quick and weather-protected upstairs/downstairs transfer (I've used QC transfer myself to save some cash on boarding/alighting at a Zone 1A stop instead of the extra terminal fare). So given that these are pretty low-leverage filler slots being off-peak non- run-thrus, their utility is dulled further by Braintree's relatively long transfer penalty.

Yeah, Braintree isn't an ideal spot as far as a transfer to the Red Line (signage was a bit confusing when I was there too and almost missed a train because of it). I mostly suggested it because it would be easier operationally than turning a train at the single-tracked Quincy Center with the whole point of this thought exercise being providing extra service without hitting that bottleneck.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Yeah, Braintree isn't an ideal spot as far as a transfer to the Red Line (signage was a bit confusing when I was there too and almost missed a train because of it). I mostly suggested it because it would be easier operationally than turning a train at the single-tracked Quincy Center with the whole point of this thought exercise being providing extra service without hitting that bottleneck.

There's still some single-track bottleneck between the East Braintree Jct. south wye and Braintree Station. The Route 3 overpass pinches the ROW and would need to be widened to make the dead-end stub track of the freight yard into a second main track, with reworked interlockings. Depending on what's running thru at those hours, needing to traverse that single-track might induce some hiccups in clock-facing timings for these shuttle trains. It's already a sorta-issue on the midday off-peak when Fore River Transportation's daily lunchtime freight is running between the junction and the CSX yard. Thankfully that's a relatively cheap fix, and the Route 3 bridge in question is within scope for the Braintree Split reconfiguration project so is slated to be replaced (don't know if slated to be widened, but that would be prudent) as part of the interchange megaproject.

 

[Delvin4519]

They didn't add any trains to Greenbush. I very much appreciate the effort to add later trains, however they just spaced them out with longer headways in the evening.

Spring Schedule:

New Fall Schedule:

Wow! 2.5 hour headways after 6:23pm train. That's some major inconvenience gaps in the schedule in my opinion. I always hear about the Commuter Rail having 1-hour headways on most lines, but this seems like a major setback for departure options after 6:23pm. I would very much appreciate an additional 7:45 pm option, and I can live with the large gap between 8:55pm and 11:20pm. (Adding a train around 7:45 pm would at least get closer to 1-hour promised headways in the evening!)

I've been seeing the same thing too in the new timetables. They mostly spaced out evening trains further apart, so the last trip is closer to midnight, but no new trips added. Any changes were mostly limited to 1 or so extra trips on weekdays on 1 or 2 lines.

 

[bigeman312]

Takeaways from the new schedule (will keep editing to add):

Newburyport/Rockport Line:

• Adds a weeknight round trip:
  • Inbound departs Rockport at 10:18 pm and arrives at North Station at 11:35 pm
    • Extends service hours on the Rockport Branch by 1.5 hours with less than seven hours between inbound trains overnight.
    • Extends service hours on the inner Rockburyport stations by 50 minutes with less than six and a half hours between trains overnight.
  • Outbound departs North Station at 11:50 pm and arrives at Rockport and Newburyport (via connection at Salem) at 1:06 am.
    • Extends outbound service hours by over an hour with less than four hours between end of last outbound trip and beginning of first inbound trip each weeknight.
• Adds 10.5 October weekend roundtrips, primarily Beverly short-turns, to serve demand to/from Salem:
  • Provides 28 weekend round trips on the line through October, with all trains stopping in Salem, for the most robust weekend service on any Commuter Rail Line in recent memory.
• Eliminates the first weekend morning outbound to Newburyport:
  • Previously has departed North Station at 5:30 am and arrives at Newburyport at 6:37 am.
  • Shortens span of service by one hour for inner Rockburyport stations and by nearly two hours on Newburyport Branch.

Lowell Line:

• Adds a weekday round trip, by shifting times throughout the day and running a bit later at night:
  • Last inbound will depart Lowell at 11:15 and arrives at North Station at 11:58.
    • Extends inbound span of service by a half hour with less than six hours between inbound trains overnight.
  • Last outbound will depart North Station ant 11:45 and arrive in Lowell at 12:30.
    • Extends outbound span of service by 45 minutes with less than six hours between outbound trains overnight
    • Four and a half hours between last outbound and first inbound train overnight.

Fitchburg Line:

• Adds two weekday round trips, with more Littleton short turns, an express train, and later weeknight service:
  • Increases number of Littleton short turns from two (midday) round trips to five (all day) round trips.
    • Increases service on the Belmont through West Concord stations from 17 to 18 round trips per weekday.
    • Decreases service on the Ayer through Washusett stations from 15 to 14 round trips per weekday.
  • Adds an express round trip (AM inbound and PM outbound) which runs express between South Acton and Porter Square.
    • Saves 15 minutes from the local trips by traversing Porter to South Acton in 25 minutes as opposed to 40 minutes.
    • Increases service to Littleton, South Acton, and Porter from 17 to 19 round trips.
  • Last inbound will depart Wachusett at 10:55 and arrive at North Station at 12:33.
    • Extends span of service by an hour and a half with five and a half hours between inbound trains overnight.
  • Last outbound train will depart North Station at 11:50 and arrive at Wachusett at 1:28.
    • Extends span of service by 50 minutes with less than six hours between outbound trains overnight.
    • Less than three hours between last outbound trip and first inbound trip overnight, making Wachusett as close to a 24-hour stop as we see in the Boston area. Over 21 hours of service is pretty impressive.

 

[fatnoah]

As a Lowell Line rider that occastionally attends Celtics games, this feels like a win for me. My AM commute train is 10 minutes earlier, but that makes my connection to the "once every 20" ferry tighter to save me about 10 minutes in the morning. Of course, the evening departure changes add about 10 minutes of slack, so it's a wash overall. The big win is the a 10:15pm departure from North Station. The existing 9:45pm departure requires missing a chunk of the 4th quarter of a Celtics game to catch it, since the games typically end between 9:45 and 9:55.

 

[jklo]

Hmm... The Worcester Line, seemingly added a Peak Framingham local in addition to trading in h2h for a Worcester local.

Looked at this again.

Currently you get in the peak:
3 Worcester local + H2H
3 Framingham local

The new schedule is:
4 Worcester local
4 Framingham local

In 2019 you had:
4 Worcester local + H2H + "Last Call train" (all except Newton stops)
4 Framingham local (plus an Ashland train that gets in at 9:39... too late)

 

[The EGE]

These schedules also bring back something not seen since 2004: Stoughton service via the Fairmount Line. The last Stoughton train of the night will make all stops (except Readville, due to platform configuration) on the Fairmount Line.

https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/media/route_pdfs/batch_6697/2023-10-02-cr-fall-winter-providence-stoughton-line.pdf.pdf

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Washout!

View from north side of washout just west of North Leominster station. Looks as if a massive amount of water accumulated in the parking lot just north of the track and found a weakness in the railroad embankment and washed through onto and beyond Hamilton Street that parallels the track to the...

photos.nerail.org

Wicked washouts on the Fitchburg Line this week because of the 8" of rain that fell Monday in Leominster. Service is short-turning in Shirley until repairs are completed this weekend.

 

[Riverside]

I wonder if Greenbush-Braintree shuttle trains in regular service, via the wye, could be theoretically possible to fill in some of the gaps (perhaps same with the other Old Colony lines to Braintree). The Old Colony single tracking must make scheduling a nightmare; this could be a good way to provide more service. The idea of having to change trains for some runs will definitely ruffle some feathers, but it's better than a giant gap in service.

Of course, this idea would be a lot more feasible if the Red Line ran at anywhere near normal speed and frequency, making transfers much less dependent on the timeliness of two infrequent commuter rail trains.

Braintree's a poorly laid-out station for attempting remotely quick Red-CR transfers. The CR platform is pretty far north of the RL station, and it takes a 600-1300 ft. weather-unprotected walk off the CR platform to even reach the rapid transit headhouse entrance, let alone the Red platforms. It gets very little utilization for that purpose today when Quincy Center is available on a very quick and weather-protected upstairs/downstairs transfer (I've used QC transfer myself to save some cash on boarding/alighting at a Zone 1A stop instead of the extra terminal fare). So given that these are pretty low-leverage filler slots being off-peak non- run-thrus, their utility is dulled further by Braintree's relatively long transfer penalty.

I’ve thought about this idea in the past. The current layout makes it basically impossible to do a CR <> Red transfer en masse. (I once sketched out a second Red platform that could be placed at the CR station, used only during timed-cross-platform transfers — a fairly expensive solution that is still a kludge.)

What has seemed marginally more promising, though still pretty tough, is cross-platform CR <> CR transfers. That would work better in terms of the physical transfer, but would require the “continuing” train to have enough capacity, which seems questionable.

 

[The EGE]

Foxboro Weekday Service Pilot | Projects | MBTA

Official website of the MBTA -- schedules, maps, and fare information for Greater Boston's public transportation system, including subway, commuter rail, bus routes, and boat lines.

www.mbta.com

On October 2, 2023, the MBTA’s 2022 Commuter Rail service pilot to Foxboro becomes permanent.

No press release, no information on results.

 

[Teban54]

Foxboro Weekday Service Pilot | Projects | MBTA

Official website of the MBTA -- schedules, maps, and fare information for Greater Boston's public transportation system, including subway, commuter rail, bus routes, and boat lines.

www.mbta.com

No press release, no information on results.

They really need to reconfigure Walpole such that both Franklin and Foxboro trains can stop there.

 

[Koopzilla24]

Transitmatters posted quite the press release about the Fitchburg Line and it’s interesting…

https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...sitMatters-Modernizing+the+Fitchburg+Line.pdf

They suggest adding infill stations at Brickbottom and Union Sq. If they want it to be regional rail why are they adding subway-spaced stops that are already served by rapid transit? If the Union Branch is never extended to Porter then a stop there is sensible for a transfer but 2 regional rail stations 0.4 miles apart is pointless.

They also suggest narrower platforms which I don’t get at all. If they’re worried about freight clearance *gauntlet* (thanks F-Line) tracks are a thing.

Shorter platforms sure I guess but the platforms already exist at 800’ so why make only half of it high level. And open gangway EMUs? Just have EMUs with doors between cars that can operate via a button press like every other EMU.

“These grade crossings on a single track section are busy, therefore frequent gate closures are fine and it shouldn’t be double tracked” is quite an interesting conclusion. Disregarding whether or not running a train every 7.5min bidirectionally on a single track section with a stop is possible, I don’t think the grade crossing problem was very thought out here. Admittedly I haven’t been over to the Waltham station but if it works anything like Norwood Depot then the gates remain down for the duration of the station dwell time because of the train’s proximity to the signal (if this is incorrect apologies). This would mean the gate is down for the 30-60sec before train arrival plus however long it’s in the station. Potentially half of the 7.5min before the next train coming the other direction starts the same cycle over again. Said busy street would likely have its gate closed for ~4min every ~4min. Because of this I don’t think it would be possible to have a grade crossing here without double tracking to at least have the gates down their target of only every 7.5min.

Ultimately this seems like they’re trying to bring back 1910s service of many stops but frequent service with modern trains and their associated infrastructure rather than a completely modernized service. With how long the Fitchburg trip is the best thing for the line would be their suggested electrification and EMUs along with a couple infill and transfer stations like Union Sq and Alewife, but combining these with more mixed express patterns like the upcoming South Acton Express and existing Littleton Local trains.