More use for Cambridge's rail line

[Shepard]

I still don't at all see how, given that South Station is expanding anyway, CR on the Grand Junction is more important than rapid transit e.g. a Green Line branch.

 

[BostonUrbEx]

What about DMU's. I'm not sure if South Station would have the capacity for frequent rapid transit-style DMU service, even with the expansion, once Fairmount is going and all the southerly extensions and such happen. So keep sending Worcester trains to South Station, but have a DMU hit North Station, Cambridge Street, between Broadway and Main, Mass Ave, Agganis/BU, Franklin St (the street truncated by the Pike, next to Cambridge St near Union Sq), Market St, Newton Corner, Newtonville, West Newton, Auburndale, Riverside/128. Try to triple track along the Pike as much as possible, or even quadruple track in the BU vicinity to keep capacity up.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I still don't at all see how, given that South Station is expanding anyway, CR on the Grand Junction is more important than rapid transit e.g. a Green Line branch.

Equipment moves. There's no way to shuttle Amtrak or commuter rail equipment from north to south without it, unless making an extremely roundabout trip from Worcester to Ayer between the Worcester and Fitchburg Lines on Pan Am's awful-condition Class 1-speed Worcester Branch. That would require a lot of track upgrades, plus additional layover space way out in the 'burbs on each line to help stage those (still very awkward) moves. And there's no way of swinging that without a full-blown southside maintenance facility the same size as BET at Readville to serve both T and Amtrak so all southside maintenance can stay on the southside to limit equipment transfers to bare minimum.

Amtrak needs a southside facility to keep pace with its 2025 service levels, and price tag for that is something like $290M. They can pool costs with the T on a combo facility (and enable the T ability to use electrics), but that would have to be an even bigger facility than Amtrak specs. And can't feasibly be built before 2025 regardless.

(CSX isn't so constrained. They have trackage rights on the same Pan Am Worcester Branch, and could easily be convinced to go to Everett via Worcester-Ayer-Fitchburg Line to make the GJ and Worcester Line inside of Framingham 100% freight-free. But only if the Pan Am line got upgraded from its current crap state to tolerable Class 2 speed.)



No good answer for any of this until the N-S Link gets a commitment or there's some replacement for the GJ like a short connecting line between the Worcester and Fitchburg Lines running alongside 128 between Riverside and Waltham. The latter is a good idea, but ain't so much as a figment of anyone's imagination until there's justification for saturation-level 128 DMU service bouncing back and forth between both mainlines. No way that's in the picture for another 20 more years at minimum and not something they'll think to build at all if the N-S Link retains a prayer of being greenlit. I would agree that GJ as a RR line is awkward at best and light rail is much more nimble and natural for the density. But replacing it is too vexing without some megaproject.



CR on the GJ becomes important when the Worcester Line gets service levels more closely approaching the Providence Line and Metro West gets transformed into bona fide transit 'burbs. But everything straight down the line from bottleneck improvements to SS expansion to fully-realized max schedules to (likely) infill stops inside 128 has to happen before the corridor gets transformed that way. The other factor is Amtrak and those 10 Inland Regionals on its long-range service plan, plus other activity like an extra Lake Shore Limited or two and potential Boston-Montreal service via Palmer-Amherst if the Vermonter gets re-extended back to Montreal. Couple of those NYC Regionals to NS at key intercity commute hours would be a differentiator for them, and also a way to coordinate cross-platform transfers a couple times a day with the Downeaster. They'd want it almost as bad as the T, with exception of having zero interest in Kendall station or anything beyond track upgrade.

Problem is...every single one of these factors projects out to a 2025 crest on ramp up of schedules and demand before the stars align for alt routings to look attractive. It is pointless to talk about building it sooner than that. The only prudent things they can do until then are get the freight backlog settled, do due diligence collecting study data, and maybe try a couple of those very limited pittance-cost/no-strings trial experiments later this decade to see what shakes out. But that's it...sort of maneuver behind the scenes to be ready to re-present the full proposal in 2020 for a 2025 start. Like Foxboro, when the time comes it's one they can pick up fast and do in short timeframe if they have their study house in order. Added emphasis on when the time comes. Counterproductive to promise anything before then, or do much of anything until then beyond collecting better study data than the farce they just sprung on Cambridge. In no way should this be on anyone's front burner. And Worcester-bred bigmouth Murray ought to know his own constituents well enough to realize that NOTHING else matters to Metro Westies until they first can experience a rage-free commute on the existing service.