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

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ABINGTON — Sgt. Scott Sherman, a Randolph police officer with 23 years of service, died Sunday after being struck by a train.

According to the Plymouth County District Attorney's Office and Transit Police Department, an MBTA commuter rail train hit a pedestrian at the Birch Street railroad crossing just before 8 p.m. Sunday. A first responder from Abington declared the man dead at the scene. He was later identified as Sherman, 56.

The DA's office said the crossing gates were working. Transit Police said the train's lights and bells were activated and that the train sounded its horn. The investigation so far found no mechanical problem with the train and that it was going below the 70-mph speed limit.
 
There have been so many deaths at those crossings in Abington. The MBTA should probably install quadrant gates at North Street and Birch Street.
North St. is already quadrant at the sidewalk level, since it has the mini sidewalk gates on the opposite sides of the main gates. Birch (where this hit took place) has 3 of 4 sidewalk sides gated, omitting only the awkward intersection with Railroad St. where the road crossing bleeds into the track crossing. Unless this guy was crossing specifically on the Railroad St. side of Birch, he willfully evaded a gate. He definitely willfully evaded the horn, bells, lights, and appearance of the gates closing on 3 of 4 sides regardless, so it's tough to rule that one a loophole.

There's very little that throwing more technology at the crossing will do for pedestrian gate evaders. It's even easier than the car drivers to swerve and evade, and you can't completely inoculate against stupidity. Somebody who wants to outrun the train is gonna try to outrun the train, crossing protection be damned. At least with the cars you can seal off all practical path for evasion (road barriers and/or quad gates). It's not possible to do that with pedestrians who can walk around or duck under the gates.
 
Another special paint job applied to a rehabbed GP40MC. This one celebrates the original T locomotive scheme with the yellow stripes:
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Original scheme on an F40PH, 1979:
MBTA1002F.jpg
 
Probably still on the roster.
Scrapped in 2021 with most of the 1978-ordered fleet. The original F40PH "Screamers" weren't rebuilt again despite the general immortality of the F40 lineage because they lacked separate HEP generators like the later and still-going 1987-88 and 1991-93 orders and had to run the prime mover at full throttle at all times when providing electricity to coaches, making them loud-as-hell smoke belchers with absolute ass fuel efficiency including when idling at stop. Would've required expensive carbody mods to fit in the separate generator, and they were really beat up in general from lack of preventative maintenance so another refurb priced out much too high to attempt. There's still 2 of them sitting very heavily parts-stripped in Rochester awaiting sale for scrap, but they were all retired 10 years ago when the HSP-46 order was fulfilled.

They lost the prominence of the yellow stripes during their 1990 rebuild, and wore a plainer scheme afterwards.
 
Unrelated: at what point in time did quad track become very difficult in Quincy/Braintree? Was it when the southeast expressway was built, when the Quincy (and later Braintree) RL branch was built, or some other time? By what I can see, it was down to 2 tracks by 1955, but I don’t know at what point the ROW became too narrow for 4 tracks.
 
Unrelated: at what point in time did quad track become very difficult in Quincy/Braintree? Was it when the southeast expressway was built, when the Quincy (and later Braintree) RL branch was built, or some other time? By what I can see, it was down to 2 tracks by 1955, but I don’t know at what point the ROW became too narrow for 4 tracks.
It was never quad track through Quincy into Braintree. The quad track ended just south of Atlantic station in the very northern portion of Quincy, where the Granite branch split off. Below that the Quincy - Braintree main was double track. Now whether the New Haven ever owned a right-of-way wide enough for four tracks through Quincy is another question. Apparently the New Haven's right-of-way was wide enough to permit the construction of today's Red Line, plus reserving space for a single track freight track (if the need arose), which was ultimately used for the MBTA's Old Colony commuter rail main line.
 
It was never quad track through Quincy into Braintree. The quad track ended just south of Atlantic station in the very northern portion of Quincy, where the Granite branch split off. Below that the Quincy - Braintree main was double track. Now whether the New Haven ever owned a right-of-way wide enough for four tracks through Quincy is another question. Apparently the New Haven's right-of-way was wide enough to permit the construction of today's Red Line, plus reserving space for a single track freight track (if the need arose), which was ultimately used for the MBTA's Old Colony commuter rail main line.
Oh, thank you.
 
New Commuter Rail Regional Rail passenger counts just dropped: https://www.massdottracker.com/latest-posts/fall-2024-regional-rail-counts

I haven't been able to dig into the data yet, but the fact that Lansdowne and Boston Landing (!) are both comfortably in the top 10 -- and that Ruggles is now closer to half of Back Bay's ridership (as opposed to a third in 2018) -- seems very notable.

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EDIT: And note the use of "Regional Rail" branding terminology in the report.
 
New Commuter Rail Regional Rail passenger counts just dropped: https://www.massdottracker.com/latest-posts/fall-2024-regional-rail-counts

I haven't been able to dig into the data yet, but the fact that Lansdowne and Boston Landing (!) are both comfortably in the top 10 -- and that Ruggles is now closer to half of Back Bay's ridership (as opposed to a third in 2018) -- seems very notable.

View attachment 61265

EDIT: And note the use of "Regional Rail" branding terminology in the report.
Do we have theories on why the North side has had a harder time recovering ridership?
 
One part - the blog post notes that Lowell and Haverhill both had limited midday service due to construction, which is likely why the inside-128 stations were some of the only ones that didn't have better-than-average recovery. However, all four northside lines have less-than-impressive recovery:

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Do we have theories on why the North side has had a harder time recovering ridership?
As @The EGE suggests, my theory (based purely on vibes, I haven't actually checked any data) is that the northside had a lot (like, the vibes are a lot) of closures, which would have disrupted habit formation.
One part - the blog post notes that Lowell and Haverhill both had limited midday service due to construction, which is likely why the inside-128 stations were some of the only ones that didn't have better-than-average recovery. However, all four northside lines have less-than-impressive recovery:

View attachment 61268
That's fascinating that Middleboro had essentially exactly the same numbers in '18 and '24. (And to a lesser extent, Needham.) I wonder what the station-by-station breakdowns are.

Also, it's true that Providence's recovery is indeed in the lower half, but I'd also point out (as a longtime loyal Providence Line fan -- some people have sports teams they're loyal to, some have train lines, it's the same thing really) that even Providence's partially recovered '24 ridership still beats every other line's full-volume 2018 ridership, outright clobbering all of them except Worcester.
 
New Commuter Rail Regional Rail passenger counts just dropped: https://www.massdottracker.com/latest-posts/fall-2024-regional-rail-counts
Roughly eyeballing the write-up, it looks like ridership recovery is worst at stations that were most reliant on park and ride pre-COVID. This seems about right, with hybrid work making monthly CR passes less attractive, especially if you already own a car. Looking at appendices 1 & 2 from a 2018 MPO park and ride study, ridership at CR stations that had the most cars parked seems to have suffered particularly poorly. Some examples:
  • Anderson/Woburn (841 parked cars, 48% ridership decline)
  • Lowell (597 parked cars, 36% ridership decline)
  • North Billerca (520 parked cars, 35% ridership decline)
  • Norfolk (506 parked cars, 51% decline)
  • Route 128 (1800 parked cars, 41% decline)
It would be interesting to do a full regression analysis, but the Open Data Portal hasn't actually been updated with Fall 2024 data.

Also, it is really impressive seeing the virtuous cycle between ridership and development take place at Boston Landing. It's a pretty clear testament to the success of TOD, and should only continue growing as other nearby projects get completed. Here's hoping that we can see similarly dense development near other Commuter Rail stops sooner rather than later.
 
That's fascinating that Middleboro had essentially exactly the same numbers in '18 and '24. (And to a lesser extent, Needham.) I wonder what the station-by-station breakdowns are.
This is very much anecdotal, but I suspect that Needham's strong performance is tied to the regional rail style schedule change. Hourly clock facing, while not show up and go, is at least an easy to remember, reliable option throughout the day. I work from home mostly, but I do find myself using the Needham Line from Roslindale far more often than used to be the case, and it's specifically to take advantage of the express level service to downtown in the middle of the day or late afternoon at predictable times. And what I've noticed is that there are usually a lot of other riders on those previously off schedule time slots. Regional rail scheduling, even if still too few trains in total > commuter focused scheduling.
 
It would be interesting to do a full regression analysis, but the Open Data Portal hasn't actually been updated with Fall 2024 data.
Is sorting by line and service date not the (right) passenger counts? Obviously you would have to average the numbers but they have estimated daily boardings.
 
Is sorting by line and service date not the (right) passenger counts? Obviously you would have to average the numbers but they have estimated daily boardings.
Looks like it got updated overnight. There wasn't anything in the "Fall 2024" season or a "stop_time" in 2024. Glad the data is there now and it will be interesting to dig into.
 
Roughly eyeballing the write-up, it looks like ridership recovery is worst at stations that were most reliant on park and ride pre-COVID. This seems about right, with hybrid work making monthly CR passes less attractive, especially if you already own a car. Looking at appendices 1 & 2 from a 2018 MPO park and ride study, ridership at CR stations that had the most cars parked seems to have suffered particularly poorly. Some examples:
  • Anderson/Woburn (841 parked cars, 48% ridership decline)
  • Lowell (597 parked cars, 36% ridership decline)
  • North Billerca (520 parked cars, 35% ridership decline)
  • Norfolk (506 parked cars, 51% decline)
  • Route 128 (1800 parked cars, 41% decline)
It would be interesting to do a full regression analysis, but the Open Data Portal hasn't actually been updated with Fall 2024 data.

Also, it is really impressive seeing the virtuous cycle between ridership and development take place at Boston Landing. It's a pretty clear testament to the success of TOD, and should only continue growing as other nearby projects get completed. Here's hoping that we can see similarly dense development near other Commuter Rail stops sooner rather than later.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a super strong trend between parking size and ridership (unless I set this up incorrectly), other than the largest park and rides having some of the highest declines in ridership:

(This chart excludes some outliers & rapid transit transfer stations)
 

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