Regional Rail (RUR) & North-South Rail Link (NSRL)

Mongo said:
Hydrogen trains built by Alstom have been run in Germany since last year. That article is about an expansion into Britain

https://www.alstom.com/our-solutions/rolling-stock/coradia-ilint-worlds-1st-hydrogen-powered-train
Click to expand...

Ahh ok my bad, it says only a top speed of 87 MPH though, so they're probally not any better than diesel trains (with regards to speed).

A big pro with hydrogen trains would be that you could run them in a hypothetical NSRL tunnel without any electrification.
 
Mongo said:
A better alternative to batteries that doesn't need overhead wire is hydrogen trains. They are currently being run in Europe to replace diesel service and seeing wider adoption.

Don't need the electrical infrastructure, just the new trains and a couple hydrogen filling stations.

Also, the D line has frequent problems with trees/branches falling on the catenary lines and stopping service. Removing Trees on the ROW is going to help that.
Click to expand...

Hydrogen's in trials here too with Class I freight switchers. either Union Pacific or BNSF is using a couple of them for evaluation's sake. However, we're talking very different things. Alternate fuels and batteries are a potential competitor to diesel in the future. NO energy source--no matter what Jetsons Shit tech is behind it--can compete with all-electric. Ever. Even 100 years from now. It's the difference between carrying a power source onboard at some quantifiable weight penalty vs. tapping a wholly external source and either taking the weight savings for greater performance or trading the weight savings for brawnier propulsion and greater performance.

Any which way the laws of physics will always and forever favor the vehicle that draws external power vs. the one that has to lug around its own internal power supply.
 
It cost California 13-14 million per mile to electrify existing rail. So putting that number onto the entire commuter rail system (398-62.9(Providence)) it would cost roughly 4.7 billion to electrify the whole thing.

Of course in Massachusetts every infrastructure project costs twice as much, so lets say about 10 billion dollars to electrify the whole system. Is there the political appetite for that type of up front cost? Of course the positive to electrification is that it can be phased in slowly.
 
I think CA has similar cost structures to MA, so I wouldn't double that. Is the $13-14 million based on linear miles or track miles? Much of Cal Train is quad tracked, so if it's linear miles, that might translate to a much lower cost here, where everything not already electrified is either double or single track.
 
HenryAlan said:
I think CA has similar cost structures to MA, so I wouldn't double that. Is the $13-14 million based on linear miles or track miles? Much of Cal Train is quad tracked, so if it's linear miles, that might translate to a much lower cost here, where everything not already electrified is either double or single track.
Click to expand...

The costs on the Green Line extension is what led me to that guess.
 
I don't have electrification numbers for the GLX, can you point me to a source? Or are you just suggesting that it seems ridiculously expensive (which it is) and therefore means everything done here will be ridiculously expensive? If the latter, the GLX has a very unique set of engineering complexities. Also, the pricing includes a layover yard and rolling stock. It's total price tag is not comparable to most other light rail construction in this country because it is counting several items not listed in the other projects' spec sheets.
 
North Station is just not (for now) where the jobs are, and the NS-to-Kendall circulator should be free and use Track 12.
 
Arlington said:
North Station is just not (for now) where the jobs are, and the NS-to-Kendall circulator should be free and use Track 12.
Click to expand...

It's probably why Seth Moulton is one of the biggest proponents of the NSRL. His district is probably the biggest beneficiary of a NSRL.
 
jass said:
What is striking is that the best performing rail line (Providence) only gets 25,000 riders.

Thats less than the Silver Line.
Click to expand...

As they mention though, 83% of the inbound trips are AM peak (read: people going to work) and 76% outbound PM peak. The subway and especially the bus is used all day.
 
jklo said:
As they mention though, 83% of the inbound trips are AM peak (read: people going to work) and 76% outbound PM peak. The subway and especially the bus is used all day.
Click to expand...

I mean the schedule for most lines is pretty horrible outside of peak periods. That itself causes off peak ridership to be less than it otherwise would be.

The cost of the commuter rail is also an impediment. Take Lynn for example, the Lynn commuter rail stop is underused. I believe this is because of cost. It is cheaper for people to take one of the numerous buses to the Wonderland.

The cost from the Lynn commuter rail stop to North Station is $6.75. And that's if your final destination is near North Station. If you need to transfer to the Orange/Green line it is an additional $2.25. So $9 each way.

On the other hand a bus from Lynn to the blue line is $2.25 each way, with free transfers.
 
jklo said:
As they mention though, 83% of the inbound trips are AM peak (read: people going to work) and 76% outbound PM peak. The subway and especially the bus is used all day.
Click to expand...

The off peak trains are pathetic, I can understand the arguments to discontinue them. This is the busiest line and there are *entire trips* that have only 4 boardings or worse. Think of the money and fuel wasted running a whole train to carry 4 people. and yeah only a few are that bad but I'm seeing several that have less than 20 passenger boardings throughout their entire trip, thats pretty pathetic and a waste of a train.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
The off peak trains are pathetic, I can understand the arguments to discontinue them. This is the busiest line and there are *entire trips* that have only 4 boardings or worse. Think of the money and fuel wasted running a whole train to carry 4 people. and yeah only a few are that bad but I'm seeing several that have less than 20 passenger boardings throughout their entire trip, thats pretty pathetic and a waste of a train.
Click to expand...

Looking at that information for other lines, time to close River Works.

Not worth stopping multiple peak trains with 500+ people on it to let off one or two riders.

Looking at the Haverhill line, it seems like the price increases have depressed ridership in Lawrence and Haverhill while ridership from Andover and Ballardvale is rising.
 
Last edited:
jklo said:
As they mention though, 83% of the inbound trips are AM peak (read: people going to work) and 76% outbound PM peak. The subway and especially the bus is used all day.
Click to expand...

Exactly. So why spend billions on projects like the NS/SS connector, or the south coast railway, when 1 billion put into the bus network would have so much of a great impact?
 
jass said:
Exactly. So why spend billions on projects like the NS/SS connector, or the south coast railway, when 1 billion put into the bus network would have so much of a great impact?
Click to expand...

The NSRL would allow parts of the Commuter Rail to operate at rapid transit like frequencies.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
The off peak trains are pathetic, I can understand the arguments to discontinue them. This is the busiest line and there are *entire trips* that have only 4 boardings or worse. Think of the money and fuel wasted running a whole train to carry 4 people. and yeah only a few are that bad but I'm seeing several that have less than 20 passenger boardings throughout their entire trip, thats pretty pathetic and a waste of a train.
Click to expand...

That is exactly the line of reasoning that leads to a death spiral and potentially collapse of the whole system. I know it is counter intuitive, but often the solution to low ridership is increasing the number of trains, not decreasing them. If you have a weak system already, weakening it further doesn't help. The cheapest system to run is one that doesn't run at all.

Not to mention, the trains can't teleport from one end of the line to the other. At some point in the day, you have to make some non-optimal trips just to move the equipment. You likely have to pay the crew whether or not the train is moving and that is the greatest operating expense.
 
tysmith95 said:
The NSRL would allow parts of the Commuter Rail to operate at rapid transit like frequencies.
Click to expand...

fattony said:
That is exactly the line of reasoning that leads to a death spiral and potentially collapse of the whole system. I know it is counter intuitive, but often the solution to low ridership is increasing the number of trains, not decreasing them. If you have a weak system already, weakening it further doesn't help. The cheapest system to run is one that doesn't run at all.

Not to mention, the trains can't teleport from one end of the line to the other. At some point in the day, you have to make some non-optimal trips just to move the equipment. You likely have to pay the crew whether or not the train is moving and that is the greatest operating expense.
Click to expand...

Preach.
 
I'm all for greater frequencies , but Isn't there still a natural service area (essentially as proposed for in the "DMUs 2024" proposal) where "transit" trips are "a thing"?

Usually that ends up being the overlapping / synonymous region defined by:
1) About the 10-mile radius from the center
2) Where the Edge Cities are (Burlington, Waltham, Needham, Dedham, Quincy)
3) At the Beltway/Ring Road/128 park-and-rides

That doesn't mean that there won't be a "special case" / binary star kind of system where there ends up being 15-min service, as there is between "big" centers:

Boston & Providence
Baltimore & Washington
NYC & Stamford, White Plains, & Newark
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top