Re: T construction news
The whole secondary? All the way from Leominster?
Also, you didn't mention it, but someone, be it Kraft or the T, was interested in a Patriots Train from Worcester to Foxboro via this line. This could potentially aide in such a venture, though I hardly think it was a driving force at all.
No. That's the Fitchburg Secondary, which the state has no immediate interest in. Unless CSX HQ in Jacksonville just decides it wants all remaining east-of-Worcester ownership off its books and makes the first move phoning up MassDOT (in which case, of course they'll pounce and make a deal).
Framingham Secondary is Framingham to Mansfield. And the only passenger considerations are Walpole-Foxboro and a teensy bit Foxboro-Mansfield. But it's an extremely important freight conduit to Boston and South Coast, and CSX hasn't been well-motivated to put more than the barest minimum upkeep into it, so the whole end-to-end thing is a valuable pickup to the state for things like growing port revenue...or growing
any new freight revenue inside the industrially decimated south half of 495.
I strongly suspect state asked about the south half for commuter rail and CSX said no-deal unless they bought the whole thing. Hard not to see CSX's motivation: they want to retract their entire permanent presence to Worcester-west and run ultra-lean ops remotely to all that's left east, focused square around the major yards Westborough, Framingham, and Readville; the interchanges with the Fore River (Braintree), MassCoastal (Middleboro), and Grafton & Upton (Grafton) shortlines; and whatever port business the state wants to giftwrap to them. That's why they outsourced South Coast to MassCoastal RR and paid off one of their 2 remaining Stoughton customers to relocate to Middleboro, that's why they're getting off the lower Franklin Line altogether by outsourcing all the Franklin-Milford customers to Grafton & Upton RR in 6 months and paid one of their Beacon Park customers to relocate to G&U's yard in Hopedale. Slash operating costs, encourage the shortlines to put the elbow grease into developing the door-to-door business they don't have time for, reap higher profits at the interchanges. Within 10 years I bet the only non-interchange, non-transload locals they keep are the stuff that has no other carrier to outsource to: the Foxboro/Mansfield/Attleboro daily local that hits a dense cluster of NEC customers, the Northborough/Leominster daily, and the little short runs out of Readville to the lucrative Home Depot warehouse behind 128 station and the tiny scraps left at Norwood industrial park on that stubby branchline that forks off Norwood Central. And maybe Everett Terminal if they don't trust Pan Am to deliver a fair cut of the produce train proceeds back to them in Worcester.
MassDOT knows this...that's why funding appears out of nowhere every time a line is available for sale. That $18M for the Berkshire Line would've appeared out of nowhere all the same even if the Patrick admin had zero interest in that quixotic passenger project out there. Active rail lines, especially ones that have thru connections and sustained traffic, amortize themselves over time by default. Whether there's any big plans for them or not. All 6 New England states pretty much will drop everything they're doing and write the check if a line goes for sale at non-gouged price.
From what the T employees on RR.net said, the non-revenue test of the Worcester-Foxboro run didn't even complete its test run before they threw in the towel. That's how much slower it ran than whatever line in the sand the T drew for the maximum allowable WOR-FXB travel time it would even entertain the notion of reserving a crew shift for. I know there was some sort of 495-area business coalition pushing the idea, but they weren't willing to put a dime of their own money behind it.
Maybe when they get the upper Framingham Sec. creaking along at >25 MPH (i.e. more than double what it does now), or somebody else fronts money to subsidize a majority of the cost, they'll revisit this. But not even full-time Foxboro CR and 60 MPH speeds south of Walpole is going to open up Worcester game train opportunities if it takes 90 minutes in hell just to get between Framingham and Walpole.
