At least the shortie platform they're proposing here is 600 ft. (7 cars), sufficient to board the longest trains currently on the Eastern Route. They aren't shooting themselves square in the foot like the too-short-for-existing-service Newtonville and Waverley dwell-killing designs.There's a virtual public meeting for the South Salem station design on January 28 from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Updated with Livestream Link - South Salem Commuter Rail Stop Project Community Update Meeting | salemma
Tuesday, January 28, 20256:00 – 7:30 PMJean A.www.salemma.gov
www.wcvb.com
I was in Franklin Line train #726 in the middle of this. We passed the Forest Hills interlocking just south of the station at around 5:53pm right on schedule where we came to a halt, and there we sat until ~7:45pm when we were finally given clearance to reverse all the way back to Readville to do a switchback onto the Dorchester Branch. Throughout our hours stopped the conductors kept giving us updates that there were no updates and that they were in the dark about it as well. Props to the conductors for sharing with us any information as soon as they received it good or bad. Train had many Bruins fans on board that missed almost the entire game. We rolled in to South Station at around 8:39pm but surprisingly nobody really made much of a fuss. News crews were there interviewing a rider and many people sat calling rides. I think the T was lucky it was a Thursday as a lot of people were murmuring about how they were annoyed but "at least tomorrow's Friday."Switch track issue leaves passengers stuck on Commuter Rail for hours
Keolis, who operates the Commuter Rail, confirmed that the problem was an issue with an Amtrak switch near the Forest Hills station.
Fair use quotes:
"Frustration aboard Commuter Rail as passengers stuck on trains were delayed for hours due to switch track issue
"BOSTON — Anger and frustration erupted among MBTA Commuter Rail passengers Thursday evening as an issue with a switch track resulted in train cancellations and passengers stuck aboard trains for hours.
"Keolis, who operates the Commuter Rail, confirmed that the problem was an issue with an Amtrak switch near the Forest Hills station..."
Would Milford be a +1 (or +2) on Franklin? I know the T recently bought the track out to at least Bellingham, but, I thought the most recent ridership study didn't look great. I'd think they'd also need to do something about the Franklin -> Forge park stretch as, from what I understand, that takes forever and is super slow which I would think would impact any further stops down the line if added.
The most easy of these for the MBTA to pull off would be Milford though it isn't the most important. I personally know more than a dozen people who either daily or semi-regularly drive to Forge Park or Southborough to commute from there and it is a town rapidly catching Franklin in population with a weirdly large but isolated Boston-commuting populace (as is Marlborough).
+2...maybe +3 as the never-released 2011 re-study was supposed to model Alts. that continued to Hopedale on the G&U mainline as well. We'll never know for sure because the study never finished, but I doubt Hopedale would've fared well as a ridership target vs. schedule length. As curvy as the Milford Branch is, it's nothing compared to how curvy the Hopedale-Milford section of the G&U main is.
Peabody/North Shore Mall has a MUCH better cost-per-rider ratio than Milford because of the short length and fairly large projected ridership of the two Peabody stops. Other than Lowell-New Hampshire that's probably the best pound-for-pound value of any extension, although done in a Regional Rail context it may now incur some dependencies on whacking Eastern Route mainline grade crossings to make the dizzying frequency of gates-down less carpocalyptic in Chelsea. Middleboro-Buzzards Bay would probably be the least expensive by track mile, but SCR Phase I made a traffic management mess out of those plans.
There's only 2 freight customers between Milford and Forge Park, and G&U only goes down there a couple times a week. It's really a non-issue, especially on upgraded track where they'd be able to scoot in and out from Milford fast. So long as the mainline through Franklin Station is double-tracked (and it's currently planned except for Franklin Station-proper), you should be able to do :30 Regional Rail on single-track + passing sidings from Franklin Jct. through Forge Park and the 2 extension stops. While the ROW was historically single-tracked, it's not all that densely abutted so they'd have attractive-enough selection of passing siding locations for the probable meets.
How impactful would Peabody service be given the single track of the Salem tunnel? You would then have three branches vs. two through routed in the single track. Also, would South Salem be a necessary condition given that the Peabody branch would not connect with the existing Salem station (and for tunnel operations)?
Peabody Branch historically always had its own double-track turnout inside the tunnel, and would stop on its own 450 ft. platform just outside the tunnel portal offset from the mainline Salem platform. So it would have no effect on ops, and you could run three :30-service branches on the mainline (albeit with pain-and-suffering at the Chelsea crossings so long as they all remain). South Salem would be necessary for better precision-timing of meets around the tunnel, as you wouldn't want to keep timekeeping those meets from a large distance away at Swampscott at RER frequencies. The only thing we don't really know yet is whether :30 Newburyport/:30 Rockport is going to require the mainline Salem platform to be doubled-up, but :30 Peabody on the turnout will be fine.
Let me start by saying that I'm very biased in favor of an extension to Hopedale and Milford, as I used to live in the center of Hopedale until 2004, and I absolutely love Milford after spending so much time there. But that being said, I don't think extending the T to Hopedale makes much realistic sense even though I'd love to see it happen. I can understand the rationale, as the town center of Hopedale is very nice and it would be a great spot for a station (especially if the Draper Mill had been converted to residences before it was demolished, which was considered at one point). But as you already mentioned, the G&U is unbelievably curvy, meaning travel times would be atrocious. Another big issue to me is that an extension to Hopedale would necessitate the Milford station being located on the G&U instead of the Milford Branch, meaning the station in Milford would have to be somewhere near the grade crossing on 140, instead of being at the ideal spot right near the center of town on Central Street. That seems like a pretty big downgrade just for Hopedale to have a station in town.
It looks like you are considering only in-state extensions. I’m going to vote:
Realigning the tracks in Bellingham along Depot Street for ~.8 miles would help a little bit, especially since it'd avoid the S-curve at Bellingham Junction. But it might be hard to get approval from the businesses on Depot Street since you'd be putting crossings at all of their driveways.
I agree that Springfield is the biggest priority, but I didn't include it since it would be Amtrak service and not the Commuter Rail.
G&U's junction with the Worcester Line points the wrong direction for Worcester (though it looks like there might be room for a very tight wye). But the speeds or lackthereof would kill that idea dead. Besides sheer neverending quantity of curves, the G&U main has a lot of incredibly tight curve radii...worse than just about anything on current Commuter Rail. The severity of the curves is because it was originally built in the 1870's as a narrow gauge line, before being converted to standard gauge in 1887. Plus 31 grade crossings over 15.5 miles from North Grafton to Milford. I doubt you'd average more than 15-20 MPH with how many speed restrictions there'd be even on upgraded track.
commonwealthbeacon.org
Conceptually a good article, but not very well researched. By including Swampscott in the locations that have underutilized space that is ripe for TOD at the Commuter Rail, he lost me completely. (Lynn would be a much better example.)Suburban commuter rail stations need more housing density, new report says
“For Greater Boston, leveraging the vast, underdeveloped land around commuter rail stations represents a crucial opportunity to address housing shortages, reduce car dependency, and better utilize existing transit infrastructure," the report said.
A top priority should be to fix the Old Colony bottleneck through Quincy and Dorchester. The sad need to operate a shuttle train meet at East Taunton to provide a barely reasonable level of service to both New Bedford and Fall River, the lack of track capacity to run direct commuter trains to Wareham and Buzzards Bay, and the constraints on providing regional rail frequencies on the Old Colony lines all point to this need.