North Station, Charles River Draw, & Tower A

bigpicture7 said:
Was looking through the recently-posted NEPA final assessment report:

I know it's already been mentioned up-thread generally, but it is so incredibly frustrating that they have to do these minor mods to the relatively new North Bank Pedestrian/Bicycle bridge. In addition to moving supports, they have to "increase the bridge height by one foot" (pg. 92). Wonderful, they built this thing one foot too short previously? Also: so great that the North Bank bridge design took great pains to contort its trajectory around the old Signal Tower A buidling -- which (wait for it) is getting demolished anyway. I get it, it's complex cross-jurisdictional work, but this one is particular painful given all these near-misses on such a new design. This heavily utilized bridge is going to need to be closed to peds/cyclists for two week stretches over a six month period (if I'm interpreting correctly).

There's only one positive, which is that even though the North Bank bridge is fully DCR owned/managed, the North Station Draw project plan includes all of those bridge mods within scope of its project so we shouldn't have to deal with cross-agency handoffs.
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When the North Bank bridge was first proposed, and the renders discussed on this board, I noted on here at the time that its south pier was too close to the tracks for future expansion of North Station's railway capacity. "Futuring" seems to be a foreign concept for the MBTA and MassDOT.
 
Charlie_mta said:
When the North Bank bridge was first proposed, and the renders discussed on this board, I noted on here at the time that its south pier was too close to the tracks for future expansion of North Station's railway capacity. "Futuring" seems to be a foreign concept for the MBTA and MassDOT.
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Because it's plainly not necessary. Let's reserve two tracks just for Amtrak, so 8 for CR. If turnarounds take 30 minutes, which is very long for peak periods, that would limit North Station to 16 TPH. That's still enough for 15 minute service to Lowell, Fitchburg, and Haverhill, and Beverly, and 30 minutes to Newburyport and Rockport. Even with crazy long peak turnarounds, especially with double-ended electric trains, and 2 tracks reserved for the 5 times per day Downeaster, the existing station capacity is still enough for high-frequency service on every branch that could conceivably warrant it.

Also how would a North Station expansion even work? You'd either need to rebuild TD Garden or demolish the MGH building, I don't see either of those as particularly likely, and I think extending OL service to Reading is the far easier solution to a capacity crunch in that case.
 
TheRatmeister said:
Because it's plainly not necessary. Let's reserve two tracks just for Amtrak, so 8 for CR. If turnarounds take 30 minutes, which is very long for peak periods, that would limit North Station to 16 TPH. That's still enough for 15 minute service to Lowell, Fitchburg, and Haverhill, and Beverly, and 30 minutes to Newburyport and Rockport. Even with crazy long peak turnarounds, especially with double-ended electric trains, and 2 tracks reserved for the 5 times per day Downeaster, the existing station capacity is still enough for high-frequency service on every branch that could conceivably warrant it.

Also how would a North Station expansion even work? You'd either need to rebuild TD Garden or demolish the MGH building, I don't see either of those as particularly likely, and I think extending OL service to Reading is the far easier solution to a capacity crunch in that case.
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There was discussed on here in 2011/1012 the option of demolishing the MGH (formerly the "Spalding") building to provide room for additional berths at North Station, which would have required additional track(s) crossing the Charles River. With the new railroad bridge proposal preserving the existing number of tracks only, that is probably a lost cause,
 
TheRatmeister said:
Because it's plainly not necessary. Let's reserve two tracks just for Amtrak, so 8 for CR. If turnarounds take 30 minutes, which is very long for peak periods, that would limit North Station to 16 TPH. That's still enough for 15 minute service to Lowell, Fitchburg, and Haverhill, and Beverly, and 30 minutes to Newburyport and Rockport. Even with crazy long peak turnarounds, especially with double-ended electric trains, and 2 tracks reserved for the 5 times per day Downeaster, the existing station capacity is still enough for high-frequency service on every branch that could conceivably warrant it.

Also how would a North Station expansion even work? You'd either need to rebuild TD Garden or demolish the MGH building, I don't see either of those as particularly likely, and I think extending OL service to Reading is the far easier solution to a capacity crunch in that case.
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The bridge replacement is designed to allow use of the two existing tracks at North Station that are currently not in service (11 and 12). The MGH building would be unaffected. The parking would get shaved a bit, however. Engineering plans here.
 
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Charlie_mta said:
With the new railroad bridge proposal preserving the existing number of tracks only, that is probably a lost cause,
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The project is expanding from 4 to 6 tracks over the Charles, isn't it?
bigpicture7 said:
Also: so great that the North Bank bridge design took great pains to contort its trajectory around the old Signal Tower A buidling -- which (wait for it) is getting demolished anyway.
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When they did the original NB bridge, they wouldn't have known if A tower would be going or staying tho - this is a bit of a fault of logic.
 
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