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

F Line/other R.R. encyclopedias:
What’s the abandoned line that runs from Walpole to Central Falls RI? Who owns the ROW nandwill it ever be turned into anything (trail, commuter line, etc)?
 
FK4 said:
F Line/other R.R. encyclopedias:
What’s the abandoned line that runs from Walpole to Central Falls RI? Who owns the ROW nandwill it ever be turned into anything (trail, commuter line, etc)?
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Wrentham Branch. Exists in 3 chunks.

-- Norwood Central to East Walpole. CSX East Walpole Industrial Track. 3 freights per week.

-- Framingham Secondary in Walpole to Plainville/495. Abandoned 1976. Mostly a power line ROW. Owned by Eversource with a few lapsed sections.

-- N. Attleboro to Central Falls. RI segment abandoned early-2000's by P&W. MA segment abandoned 1968.

There are also branches out of Plainville: west to Franklin Line @ Franklin Jct. and east to the NEC @ Attleboro Jct. The Franklin connector was abandoned in the 50's, the NEC connector in 1976. Both have obliterated sections rendering any remaining ROW unusable.

Between the 3 chunks the Wrentham ROW is obliterated. Passenger service stopped in 1938 and it was one of the few southside lines excluded from MBTA sale in 1973.

Walpole-Plainville is a possible passenger route since it hits Wrentham Outlets, 495, and closeby to Plainridge Casino...all the while closely trailing Route 1A. The only encroached parts are fairly simple to bypass. But it's never been studied, the chopped-up ownership and lack of landbanking are big problems, and that swath of 495 could get decent transit sooner via connecting buses to RER'd Providence & Franklin Lines. So chances are it's going to sit dead-last on the wishlist for a long time.
 
^^ Thanks man. There were so many stone embankments, plus the viaduct itself, it's impressive to think how much engineering and money went into building all of these lines, and yet how so many of them only saw a few decades of service... Looks like it was built in the late 19th C., so the entirety of the line was only around for 40 years or so.
 
FK4 said:
^^ Thanks man. There were so many stone embankments, plus the viaduct itself, it's impressive to think how much engineering and money went into building all of these lines, and yet how so many of them only saw a few decades of service... Looks like it was built in the late 19th C., so the entirety of the line was only around for 40 years or so.
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Railroad competition. The Wrentham Branch was built by New York & New England RR, who pre-1900 were one of the 4 main southside players: NYNE, Boston & Providence, Boston & Albany, Old Colony. They used it as a route to Providence to compete with B&P, going to Central Falls via today's Fairmount Line + Franklin Line, the Wrentham Branch...and then a short stretch trackage rights on separate-company Providence & Worcester RR to reach Providence. The Franklin Line (a.k.a. Air Line) was the thru route to New Haven and New York.

After turn of the century 3 of the 4 carriers (including P&W on the south tip of this route) had merged into New York, New Haven & Hartford...and until 1969 it was just them and B&A covering all southside routes. With the NEC becoming the superior thru route to Providence, the Wrentham Branch quickly became a backwater route used only for local service. It was already surplus-to-requirement, so when the Depression hit the passenger trains quickly got chopped and it went freight-only. The Air Line was somewhat stronger because it made good raw time, lasting until 1955 as a thru route (hurricane floods washed out a bridge in Putnam, CT and bankrupt NYNH&H couldn't afford to repair it). But it was nowhere near as popular as the NEC Shoreline which hit more population.

If competition had remained these "threat" railroads would've lasted much longer. But the insane line redundancy in New England became a problem once merger mania consolidated all the players and left duplicate routes galore. And in turn that's what ended up getting it abandoned altogether, as first Penn Central (buyer of NYNH&H in '69, and then subject to the then-biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history in '71) and then gov't-created Conrail slashed huge mileage on their branchline freight networks to get rid of non-strategic assets and lines that cost in operating as much or more than they brought in with revenue. That's where the largest segment of the branch met its demise in '76. The only curious aspect of that is that the Penn Central bankruptcy court rolled up most of the lines the gov't didn't want included in Conrail with the huge '73 southside asset sale to the T. The Wrentham Branch probably should've been included in that if it was only 3 years from abandonment...but the Conrail route map was revised a zillion times before the new company made its federally-sanctioned debut, so it's entirely possible this branch was originally a keep that got moved to the trash bin at the last minute.
 
^Extremely interesting and informative. Thanks.
 
FWIW...if you did want to restore service on it, the build would go like this.

  • East Walpole Industrial Track is unusable because it's obliterated by newer homes after Chestnut St., Walpole. Must use the route to Foxboro via Fairmount + Franklin + Walpole Jct.

  • Follow the Framingham Secondary out of Walpole Station 1.5 mi. to Cedar Jct. This is start of the 1976 abandonment. Southbound junction + old diamond crossing clearly visible.
    • If you zoom way in you'll notice there's extant track and a grade crossing from where the power lines cross the ROW just south of the junction to Industrial Rd.
    • Electrification FYI: those power lines are the same source that feeds Sharon substation on the NEC, converging at a massive Eversource sub on 1A about 2000 ft. north of Cedar Jct. That's the spot where you'd plug in a Franklin/Foxboro electrification sub for electrifying the current lines.
    • Cedar Jct. is named after adjacent Cedar Swamp, and Walpole State Prison a mile or so down the branch is named "MCI-Cedar Junction" after the RR.

  • Winter St. by the prison has residential encroachment. FIX: Move ROW back ~450 ft. behind the houses for length of ~3000 ft., re-joining at former Winter St. grade crossing (i.e. industrial access driveway).
    • DIFFICULTY: EIS'ing through sliver of wetlands, close shave splitting between 2 homes on Winter. Doable because at fringe of wetlands and only a single-point property encroachment, but is what it is.

  • Station: South Norfolk. On MA 115, with nearby TOD on 1A.
    • Note the bridge embankments.
    • This station used to be called "Cottage"-something, which is why the adjacent car wash on 115 goes by that name.

  • 1 residential obstruction south of 115. Weave around, re-join ROW at ex- Winter St. grade crossing.
    • DIFFICULTY: Securing easement between 2 homes @ Winter St. Spacing OK, but ROW ownership may have been split between adjacent residential owners.

  • Re-route of 1 condo driveway near 1A, moving it south of ROW for grade separation.
    • Note extant 1A underpass.

  • Station: Wrentham Common @ Depot St. near 1A/140 intersection. Traditional town center of Wrentham, location of (demolished) historic station.
    • Used to be called just "Wrentham".
    • Power lines on ROW start here, keeping line to south well-buffered.

  • Station: Wrentham Outlets/495. Obviously monster TOD & P'nR potential.
    • Extant 495 underpass.
    • Power line ROW ends at substation by rock quarry @ High St.
    • Rock quarry was last freight customer in 1976.

  • Possible (minor) obstructions @ Commerce Blvd. Driveway @ SW 'bend' on Commerce needs to be split; ample room, but must square easements. DIFFICULTY: Unclear what redev plan is for demolished factory brownfields in center of block. Probably not big deal because brownfields-under-remediation, many possible paths through.
    • Note the siding tracks still extant on the demolished factory parcel, including what looks like a 'pit' track for top-loading at ground level. No idea what business used to be here.

  • Station: Plainville, @ W. Bacon St. near 1A. Traditional downtown.
    • Extant bridge abutments on West St. south of station.

  • Terminal station: North Attleborough. Traditional downtown.
    • Junction with Attleboro Branch running east to NEC @ Attleboro Jct./Attleboro Station. Branch obliterated @ US 1, virtually untraceable to east.
    • 2 station options: Broadway on the Wrentham Branch ROW, or bending in towards Route 1 on the Attleboro Branch ROW with a couple industrial-crud parcels on Chestnut St. flipped for station redev + TOD.
    • Layover yard can go back on the Wrentham Branch north of High St. where there's a tree barrier to protect noise.
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  • ROW continues intact across MA 120 and I-295 (highway built post-abandonment), but runs into a hard blocker just south of 295 at Chemawa Golf Course, which was expanded on top of it and then infilled over with new homes. Hard to trace the ROW until Depot St. (ex.-Adamsdale Station) right before the RI state line.
    • Note the remains of the connecting branch to Franklin forking off to the west at the top tip of the golf course. It's easily traceable on the RI side of the border, but hella obliterated once it re-crosses back into MA.
    • Same spot: power line ROW to the east was never a RR structure, and crosses a couple large ponds so unusable for a re-route.
    • The more recent 2000's abandonment starts at the ex- RI 123 grade crossing right at the state line.
    • I-295 isn't usable for a station site because ROW hits highway at widest possible point between MA Exits 1 & 2.
    • Very pronounced density cavity south of N. Attleboro downtown to state line. No compelling audience for even reaching relatively uncongested I-295 when Exit 1 is only 2 miles to the last stop.
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SCHEDULE (TBD on any Fairmount skip-stoppage):
SOUTH STATION
Newmarket
Uphams Corner
Four Corners/Geneva
Talbot Ave.
Morton St.
Blue Hill Ave.
Fairmount
Readville
Endicott
Dedham Corporate Ctr.
Islington
Norwood Depot
Norwood Central
Windsor Gardens
Walpole
South Norfolk
Wrentham Commons
Wrentham Outlets/495
Plainville
NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH


So, basically...it's doable from Walpole to N. Attleboro as the only obstructions are single-point and easily mitigated. And at RER service levels it probably would fetch pretty good ridership with the stops either being at prime TOD sites or in traditional downtown centers.

Problem is simply that property-taking of any kind is a royal pain in the ass that chews too much project time, and this is the only buildable commuter rail line in the MBTA district that would have to engage it in-total...with full fragmentation of all but the Eversource ROW rather than having 95%+ of it already in-hand through state ownership and landbanking like other proposals. So unfortunately even if the ridership looks mid-range good and better under RER than conventional peak/off-peak...they are thoroughly disincentivized to take it up for consideration until they've tamed their project backlog on ROW's they do own or which an active RR owns.

I can't really disagree with that. Foxboro, Nashua, Buzzards Bay, Peabody...even a non-broken reboot of South Coast-via-Stoughton...all take precedent. So does Northborough, and so does Franklin-Milford and/or Franklin-Woonsocket. All of them deliver high enough ridership bang-for-buck without requiring an armada of property lawyers, so they wouldn't be doing the district its due diligence slotting this one higher than that glut.

Never say never on Wrentham/N. Attleboro...but it's probably going to have to wait until commute attitudes have changed enough to degunk the legal blockers to creating virgin ROW's. Something other countries with equally strong property rights can do...but we're just not at enough of a desperation point for car-free alternatives to make for a deal-making atmosphere on easement horse-trading. That atmosphere is gonna be well >20-25 years off.
 
Has there been any chatter about the rebuild of the 3 newton stations? Nothing seems to have hit the press since the Auburndale 1-platform redesign was shot down last year.

I guess this can all be done in one fell swoop + infill at Newton Corner & West Station when riverside gets electrified for urban rail.
 
sneijder said:
Has there been any chatter about the rebuild of the 3 newton stations? Nothing seems to have hit the press since the Auburndale 1-platform redesign was shot down last year.

I guess this can all be done in one fell swoop + infill at Newton Corner & West Station when riverside gets electrified for urban rail.
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It will happen. It's at the top of the heap of Commuter Rail station improvements along with Winchester Center from an ADA perspective. The question is what recommendation ends up coming out of the Rail Vision in terms of one-side/island/two-platform.
 
F-Line:

It seems like the Franklin line has room for expansion in the far flung future, but what kind of service can it maintain? It will eventually be forced over to the Fairmount line, and with any luck it will have to contend with higher frequency service on that line. Can the line support Fairmount+Franklin+Foxboro+Short Turns? I'm talking theoretical maximum here.
 
ulrichomega said:
F-Line:

It seems like the Franklin line has room for expansion in the far flung future, but what kind of service can it maintain? It will eventually be forced over to the Fairmount line, and with any luck it will have to contend with higher frequency service on that line. Can the line support Fairmount+Franklin+Foxboro+Short Turns? I'm talking theoretical maximum here.
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Yes; there's enough capacity to go around. Because Foxboro isn't a long schedule it's slated to make all local stops on Fairmount. Under RER that means 50% of Fairmount's Urban Rail frequencies come via Foxboro Regional Rail slots. If Forge Park, etc. makes all local stops that's the other 50%, with Readville short-turns only required on as-needed basis to square-up any discrepancies in the overall churn of :15 Urban Rail headways.

Since it's more palatable for the longer Forge Park runs to do some skip-stopping inside the city to trim time off the end-to-end schedule, additional Readville short-turns can be added to square the frequencies. Mixing Foxboro+Readville all-locals with Forge Park skip-stops is accomplishable via crossovers, same as Worcester trains would leapfrog Riverside Urban Rail locals. If any line upgrades are needed, it's simply a couple additional crossovers at the probable meet points.

Additionally, the NEC-Franklin connection probably isn't going to go totally unused. It needs to be vacated of most local slots to address SW Corridor congestion, but there will still be slots available during Amtrak gaps to send Forge Park or Foxboro supplementals down the old routing. That can be used to counterbalance any conflicts with terminating Readville trains and/or freights coming over the Fairmount-Franklin connector into Readville Yard.


The Franklin main is extremely under-capacity, and formerly served a much thicker layer cake of passenger and freight services than it does now. No problem whatsoever swinging Woonsocket AND Milford if need be. But unless there's skip-stopping involved travel time on the traditionally single-track Milford Branch is so long that train occupancy on the single-track may force a schedule that's slightly sub-RER :)30 headway) level. But that's not necessarily a bad thing when it would still be considerably more than today's peak/off-peak conventional schedules.
 
So in a post NRSL/electrification world, how much North Station is necessary? If the MBTA does switch to EMUs, would DEMUs (sent through the NSRL)make sense for any all of the routes where electrification is too expensive? If Amtrak and Fitchburg(past Weston) were the only users left, what is the solution? Two tracks? That would be a valuable site for development
I know this is entering Crazy Pitches territory, but are there any statistics on how many people taking the CR into NS then get on the G/OL? I know that a significant percentage of passengers on the Fitchburg Line get off at Porter. How many more would/could take the GL if IT went to Porter? Could Porter be the last stop for diesels? Could a Sullivan Sq GL/OL/CR super station serve the same purpose for Amtrak/ Newburyport/Rockport diesels? Do we need an above-ground NS at all?
On a side note, why are we sending 100 mill on drawbridge replacement/expansion? In this scenario, only one two track bridge would be needed. That money would go a long way towards a UR bridge to Chelsea/Everett.
 
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Tallguy said:
So in a post NRSL/electrification world, how much North Station is necessary? If the MBTA does switch to EMUs, would DEMUs (sent through the NSRL)make sense for any all of the routes where electrification is too expensive? If Amtrak and Fitchburg(past Weston) were the only users left, what is the solution? Two tracks? That would be a valuable site for development
I know this is entering Crazy Pitches territory, but are there any statistics on how many people taking the CR into NS then get on the G/OL? I know that a significant percentage of passengers on the Fitchburg Line get off at Porter. How many more would/could take the GL if IT went to Porter? Could a Sullivan Sq GL/OL/CR super station serve the same purpose for Amtrak/ Newburyport/Rockport diesels? Do we need an above-ground NS at all?
On a side note, why are we sending 100 mill on drawbridge replacement/expansion? In this scenario, only one two track bridge would be needed. That money would go a long way towards a UR bridge to Chelsea/Everett.
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Would love for the surface NS to get abandoned in favor of a four-track NSRL and an underground station under the city hall. Could we just have the entire north side through-run to the south? Or would we still need like Beverly-NS shuttles during peak hours to stop at the surface terminal?
 
Tallguy said:
So in a post NRSL/electrification world, how much North Station is necessary? If the MBTA does switch to EMUs, would DEMUs (sent through the NSRL)make sense for any all of the routes where electrification is too expensive? If Amtrak and Fitchburg(past Weston) were the only users left, what is the solution? Two tracks? That would be a valuable site for development
I know this is entering Crazy Pitches territory, but are there any statistics on how many people taking the CR into NS then get on the G/OL? I know that a significant percentage of passengers on the Fitchburg Line get off at Porter. How many more would/could take the GL if IT went to Porter? Could a Sullivan Sq GL/OL/CR super station serve the same purpose for Amtrak/ Newburyport/Rockport diesels? Do we need an above-ground NS at all?
On a side note, why are we sending 100 mill on drawbridge replacement/expansion? In this scenario, only one two track bridge would be needed. That money would go a long way towards a UR bridge to Chelsea/Everett.
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Here's what people always forget. You can't send all incoming trains through NSRL, its physically impossible unless you plan on building about a 10-12 track wide tunnel (read, impossible in Boston). Some trains would still have to terminate at NS and SS as they currently do in order to be operationally feasible. In fact at south station there are 9 tracks converging into 13 platforms.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Here's what people always forget. You can't send all incoming trains through NSRL, its physically impossible unless you plan on building about a 10-12 track wide tunnel (read, impossible in Boston). Some trains would still have to terminate at NS and SS as they currently do in order to be operationally feasible. In fact at south station there are 9 tracks converging into 13 platforms.
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Additionally unless you want to electrify all the way to Portland you'd need to keep some platforms for the Downeaster. You're absolutely right about maximizing track usage. You can't feed 9 tracks with two or four.

EDIT: Something I know some here talk a lot about is also that you need at least one underground station very close to North Station because of the need to maintain surface platforms so that people can transfer to through trains.
 
:?:
ulrichomega said:
Additionally unless you want to electrify all the way to Portland you'd need to keep some platforms for the Downeaster. You're absolutely right about maximizing track usage. You can't feed 9 tracks with two or four.

EDIT: Something I know some here talk a lot about is also that you need at least one underground station very close to North Station because of the need to maintain surface platforms so that people can transfer to through trains.
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So, if ER, Haverhill, Lowell, AND Fitchburg put 6tph each into the two tunnels, that's 5 min headways. No need for extra platforms.That's the beauty of NSRL (one of them) No need for upper/under transfers except for Amtrak and diesels. And Garden events;)
 
Tallguy said:
:?:

So, if ER, Haverhill, Lowell, AND Fitchburg put 6tph each into the two tunnels, that's 5 min headways. No need for extra platforms.That's the beauty of NSRL (one of them) No need for upper/under transfers except for Amtrak and diesels. And Garden events;)
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I'm going to have to defer to those that know more about the actual operations at play here. My understanding was that even if we maxed out the tunnels we'd still need the surface platforms to fully feed each of the routes. It's not necessarily a matter simply of TPH but of operational flexibility. E.g. diesels to fill in the schedule gaps that can't be through-routed to the south for whatever reason.

EDIT: So according to the recent swiss cheese study a two-track variant an only support 17 trains per hour, which seems optimistic unless there's absolutely no schedule issues. I'd expect a lower number in practice. That can't absorb all of the trains we'd want from the North side unless we're going with only 15 minute headways among all trains on each line.

The four-track variant gives a slightly better 21 trains, but that still doesn't quite absorb your proposed schedules. And there's still the issue of non-electrified sections, the Downeaster, and future growth beyond what the tunnel can take. In the short term North-Station-Over is absolutely still needed. In the middle term (full system electrification) it might not be. In the very long term (future extensions such as Peabody, Nashua, the reactivation of any now-dead lines) the tunnel won't be able to absorb all of the traffic being fed into it.
 
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anyone have any insight into why having the above-ground union freight railroad (atlantic ave and commercial street) connect south and north stations worked fine for years co-existing with automotive and human traffic, but we can't simply do the same thing (but with a focus on passengers rather than freight) now?

i mean, 1970 (when UFRR ceased this route) is a while back at this point, but it's not like this was a thing in the 19th century and of course it wouldn't work today etc.
 
chrisbrat said:
anyone have any insight into why having the above-ground union freight railroad (atlantic ave and commercial street) connect south and north stations worked fine for years co-existing with automotive and human traffic, but we can't simply do the same thing (but with a focus on passengers rather than freight) now?
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You mean the very old elevated? Yeah that's not coming back.
 
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