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

[F-Line to Dudley]

OK...rather than nitpick everything I'll choose 4 overarching examples deeply emblematic of the larger problems with this document.

Stoughton -- TM wants it electrified from Day 1. Well, that's not really possible until you know where substation placement is going to be. If the line forever-ends at Stoughton that's easy enough: mini sub @ Will Dr. in Canton where the ROW is crossed by the same 25 kV-capable power lines that feed Sharon sub. But if South Coast Rail Phase II is happening subs need to go nearish the middle of their power sections otherwise voltage losses don't compute. That means sub @ MA 106 in Easton next to Southeastern Regional Voc Tech school, supplied by the lines that cross just south in the swamp. Okie-dokie...here's one very concrete decision-making inflection point. What are the options for electrifying now? Is it Canton mini-sub made future-expandable, then a distended southern reach to the power section for the power section to Taunton and rejiggered placement of the Fall River and New Bedford branch subs to compensate? Is it Canton mini-sub, but then having to live with an unusually tiny-length power section because adding Easton-or-south is the only way you can feasibly chunk out SCR Phase II wires?

At bare minimum, electrics on Stoughton are no-go until this question is answered. An implementation plan that bullets SCR has to incorporate this somehow. Has this been vetted by a railway electrification expert to see how much costs may have to double-dip if SCR Phase II is still up in the air? This can't be treated as simple manifest destiny. If you want your Phase IA wad to spread the furthest and net the most service increases for the buck, this isn't one that's possible to gloss over. And if it's an unfavorable assessment, what's the backup plan for an inflection point that's too steep for inclusion in Phase IA? Do you try for at least the Foxboro half of Franklin/Foxboro instead? Expedite Worcester so there's less squishiness about whether it's going to be EMU-ready the second the Pike project is finished?

The answer can't be "Stoughton...because we said so" when that direct-contradicts the maxing of bang-for-installment-buck they call one of their core planks.

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Beverly -- Touched on in last post, but the inflexibility of stanning for Beverly Depot as the self-described demarcation point for the "environmental justice" zone and demanding that all Salem trains 1:1 hit Beverly is self-limiting in so many ways. One, Beverly Draw is a bottleneck unto itself so if you don't use the spread of load-balancing options in Salem to the fullest--like using the Peabody-side turnout with its more-fluid tunnel interface. You'll have brittle OTP if all schedules are predicated on every last train hitting Beverly on rote clock-facing. Which is doubly problematic since they're deferring branch electrifcation. How is that going to work with HEFTY majority of the service pie still having to be diesel. If you aren't using the Peabody turnout to make a third EMU-only service pattern, they're just going to be the rounding error in a sea of still-diesels. How is that a good resource expenditure for first priorities??? And how is it going to deliver "justice" soonest when diesels are going to outnumber EMU's by a wide margin thru the constraints set by Salem tunnel + mainline platforms and Beverly Draw?

Of "justice" is the target, maybe those Rockport/Newburyport substations can't be deferred at all to later phases. You fund all at once, turn on the Bev-south juice when Sub #1 is done, but keep charging along so the branches follow ASAP and there's a set date for when EMU's are carrying water for the Urban Rail zones. Or maybe you wire up to the Peabody turnout so there's 3 distinct service patterns from Day 1 and the EMU share is a little more substantial than a rounding error. Or maybe since this is your only northside outpost and the initial-dip north electrification has to include very pricey terminal district work, you rationalize whether North should be included in the first phase. Maybe you get bigger bang-for-buck shifting attention immediately to Franklin/Foxboro or expediting Worcester, and load up for bear on a later phase for breaking North.

These are real inflection-points for the investment decision, and if they're not fleshed-out enough to be ready for prime time...what's the pivot? If the Eastern has too many questions marks--sky-high upside and all--are we going to let this get bogged down in "justice" principle or allow selves the flexibility to make quick but tough decisions to circle back? It doesn't sound like TM has thought much at all about how the deck could be reshuffled if details aren't fleshed out enough for original suppositions or if further analysis uncovers complications. This implementation plan has to be more nimble than that. This build in particular--first on the northside, willfully engaging maximum bottlenecks in target fixation, unclear transition plan for full services, leaves fungible traffic offsets on the table because they don't neatly fit target fixation--seems ripe for getting upended on those issues.

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

SSX -- Has long been TM's kryptonite, as they've railed against the project's excesses but have been incoherent in what parts of the massive lump of ops, eye-candy, and real estate empire-building is most objectionable and have defaulted to monolithic screeds against (which just plays into Baker's hands, because the monolithic lumping of disparate interests serves to keep the attack angles from landing blows). Now that it's crunch-time, they aren't getting any less incoherent. They say every southside line needs a dedicated platform, but that all of that is accomplishable by ops reform. Slight math problem there. There's 13 platforms at SS, 10 present-day commuter rail endpoints, 1 more with the South Coast Rail distending of Middleboro, and now the 'excuse-me' Buzzards Bay study promise as direct outflow of some of the convoluted decision-making on SCR. And, oh BTW, the 2-ton elephant in the room Amtrak with its voracious expansion appetite and ironclad requirement for a yard deadhead in between all Acela, Regional, or Inland slots. The interlockings are already being streamlined for fault-tolerance. What else "ops-only" could there possibly be that squares the inherent contradiction of every service needing a home berth but there not being enough home berths for every service. Name those offsets, please.

If they can't, is there going to be some acknowledgment that track expansion is necessary? If not the full doubling of platform capacity all the way to Dot Ave., then how many more? Assail the gold-plated headhouses and real estate kingmaking and rec boat docks on the Channel with all the bile and gusto as before, because that extracurricular shouldn't be lumped into the same budget as the track work or bare platform & shelter pours any which way. But we've reached a conundrum that is beyond monolithic opposition. What is the pivot? Because if the answer is only "5 more tracks" instead of 13, that's potentially an awesome cut-rate deal shorn of the other extracurricular. But break it down so that your own self at least agrees with your own selves first.

---- ---- ---- ---- ----

EMU procurement -- OK, TM's release trails by 1 week the T's presentation of its RFI bidders. But I see they're still stanning for single-levels, single-levels, single-levels as if that's the only option. Well...parse the bids we just got.

• Alstom - bi-level
• Bombardier - bi
• *CRRC - single-level
• Hitachi - single
• *Hyundai-Rotem - single
• Stadler -- bi

Oh, but the asterisks. Can't take any fed funds for CRRC because of sanctions against Chinese rolling stock companies. Rotem has no more U.S. plants...doesn't meet Buy American. Can pretty much toss both right then and there, because there's no way in a COVID-recovery universe with potentially transit-friendlier next U.S. Admin that we're preemptively foregoing chance at any fed funding streams. That leaves Hitachi, who do not have any North American mainline product and have more market share in harder-to-FRA-adapt Asia than Europe. They're big, but they've got more self-import hurdles than the EU-dominants.

Why are we not acknowledging odds that this is most likely gonna be a bi-level order? The 3 with the biggest lead--Bomabardier, Stadler, Alstom--are all peddling bi's. In cases of existing FRA-compliant builders BBD & Stadler they don't have flats this second because the adapting bodies for our platform heights just happen to be bi, not single, and they'd have to fish through their Euro catalogues for something not yet FRA-certified to plug that hole so it's not a today proposition for them. They'll have those product holes filled for North America later on; it's just not top priority today because their initial U.S. buyers were bi-level.

So where's the treatment of this inflection point, TM??? We now have very well-established probabilities of where this order is going to break...and it is overwhelmingly likely to be be-level. Do we plan for the first order to be bi...but for subsequent orders to take pains to differentiate flats for intra-128 Urban Rail and bi's for trans-495 RUR? Do you put immediate attention to making sure these bi's are 2 x 2 seating, generous aisles, wide doors, and efficient vestibules so they're 'good enough' as Fairmount placeholders on that first wave where we don't have much choice? Does the reality that it will be initial purchase of bi's change any of the first-wave electrification corridor priorities? Or do we just double-down on the flats preference like we're still living in abstract world where the RFI hasn't already been responded thoroughly to?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I'll take random stabs at a few of these. . .

Rail stations in walkable distance of proper town/village centers is one of my favorite things in the world. But has this been studied at all, like, ever? I feel like I read something like this in the PMT... close to 20 years ago?

No...the PMT proposal was for "Westborough/495" underneath the interchange. Which is nonsensical, because look at the interchange on Google: there are no local roads with exit access anywhere...for miles. It's all swampland and the CSX Transflo yard. Besides, Fitchburg Secondary is only 2 exits/3-1/4 miles up from the Pike on 495 in the heart of a TOD-licious industrial park, so that's where you bullseye your future 495 stop.

This seems to be actual acknowledgment that the middle-of-nowhere Westborough stop is an irredeemable collosal failure that will never bring adjoining TOD, and that they want to hit the "Undo" button and go back to the downtown H.H. Richardson depot they never should've left. Eminently sensible, but should be noted that you probably cannot keep both stops on the schedule that way. The Big Mistake out by Hocomonco Pond is going to have to be abandoned, but I doubt anyone sheds a tear for it.

FWIW...the reason they can't do the same with Downtown Ashland depot is that when Main & Cherry St. grade crossings are eliminated it's going to put the old depot site mid-incline to the new rail-over-road bridges. So you probably are stuck with the forlorn off-center new station forever. But New Ashland isn't quite the utter lost cause New Westborough is.

But then there are just these other things thrown in there that seem either jarringly vague (Seaport Station, I'm looking at you) or jarringly unrealistic (e.g. Triple Track in < 5 years). Which -- honestly -- is out of character for TransitMatters, who've always been really good at doing their homework.

Sounds like Track 61 lip service again. I can't ever take that seriously. An intermediate stop in Widett Circle wouldn't be anywhere near the "Seaport", as no mainline ever gets close enough there. And of course it's a fat lot of speculation that Widett and the air rights blocks by Traveler/W. 4th are ever going to command serving stations when our complete "STOP PUNCHING YOURSELF!" ineptitude at developing those slabs keeps getting reinforced in real time.

You're right...why are they wasting their time on this? Aloisi was always highly critical that those pie-in-sky City-level fixations re: 61 had any transit utility.

Re cost estimates: I'm a bad railfan, but I just don't really care that much about cost estimates -- I just don't get my jollies off of them. But I will say that while I'm pleased that TransitMatters is looking at costs around the world, I think it wouldn't hurt to include a bit more discussion of what factors are at play here in the US which might drive costs up.

They're problematically low. Because you can't just cherry-pick some golden reference case in the world and say "Meet this or you've failed." None of the 'best' countries rate as same-bests for every separate piece of infrastructure-building expertise required by a plan this diverse, so the lumpage is way too reductionist. Read Alon Levy of late now that he's taking some very deep dives for paid work into international construction costs. Basically no one is as "good" as they used to be because the MBA'ers are displacing the transit managerial classes in too many of the model countries, but the situation-specific variances are proving to be an eye-opener. Some do tunnels well...some do stations well...some do fleet management well...some do lineside ops cost management well. Rarely, however, are you going to find a country that does all of them well and doesn't score low on at least one category because of internal mgt. culture or other 'local' effects.

That said, TM's lowballing is much closer to the truth than MassDOT's tankapalooza high estimates. So it's not a total ying-yang. One of these sides is better-informed than the other, though we've gotten pretty good as a commuting public of late picking out when Baker/Pollacks hand is firmly on the scale given recent East-West, NSRL, Red-Blue study follies. I don't think anyone's on-the-mark here, but we can acknowledge that TM has a shorter distance to go towards accurate accounting than the state's flaks do.

• Not specific to the map, but why run Haverhill service via Reading? The Lowell Line is double tracked all the way into North Station, while the Reading Line has a significant single track stretch between Oak Grove and the BET.
  • Is the concern that the single-track Wildcat would be too much of a bottle neck?

Nope...Wildcat is fully DT'able, and when it was upgraded attached to the whole Haverhill improvements program they re-spaced all the crossing gates to DT so it's pretty much all drop-ready. Only question is whether Salem St. Station, if reanimated as a replacement for North Wilmington, would be able to go full-high or have to be mini-high like Ballardvale + Andover. It's only got room for 2 tracks w/ side platforms, no passers...and positioning abutting a grade crossing makes gauntlets a no-go.

I don't see the scruples in contradicting the Rail Vision here. Haverhill interlining with Lowell was the actual RV means of delivering Urban Rail frequencies Wilmington-inbound via the double-up. How do they expect to do that without? And, yes, you have to shear off at least 90% of the daily Haverhill runs to make short-turning at Reading every :15 doable with the single-track meets and the Reading Jct. merge with the Eastern Route in Somerville. I would've thought that was all self-explanatory. After all, for more of history Haverhill and Reading were separate schedules, so this isn't a new idea to anyone on the corridor. They've only been conjoined like this since 1979; there was zero passenger service whatsoever through North Wilmington for decades before then, and the signal system had even been retired because it was only light B&M freight usage. Strange thing to space on because it was so obvious in the Rail Vision.

• The map marks all Fairmount Line stations as requiring New High Level Platforms -- at most, that should only be Fairmount and Readville
• The map does not mark the new high level platform that is needed at Back Bay

Correct and correct.

• Does Stoughton get 15-minute headways? And therefore does Route 128 get 7.5-minute headways?
• The map shows Stoughton as electrified but doesn't include the electric train icon at Stoughton the way it does at Providence, Fairmount and Beverly
  • The proposal suggests 8 trainsets for Providence -- is that 8 for Providence + n for Stoughton? Or is that 8 for Providence & Stoughton?

As per my last post, there is a LOT wrong with the up-front assumptions they're making about Stoughton which betrays too much abstract glossing-over and not nearly enough willingness or anticipation to be able to pivot around planning snags that force them to make tough decisions. It's a microcosm of what's wrong with the document that they seem so unprepared for those eventualities. It's not like the whole "whither South Coast Rail" thing hasn't long been a giant elephant in the room on anything Stoughton-related. Including simply preservation of existing service given the way the SCR FEIR ran roughshod all over it with skip-stopping. Bad omen to be brushing that under the rug and not have willing alternatives to play instead if things get snagged.

• Second platforms proposed at Ipswich and others... what's the story on this? Basically a Spanish Solution? But for distant suburb stations each with average-at-best ridership?

Maybe not cleanly worded, but even the North Shore Transit Improvements study way back 16 years ago called for DT'ing portions of the Newburyport Branch to support increased frequencies. It's pretty much a no-brainer that if you start closing up the North Beverly-Ipswich and Ipswich-Newbury single-track gaps that eventually Hamilton-Wenham and Ipswich were going to gain second platforms (Rowley at least is pre-built for DT island simply by changing the side access to up-and-over). Other than Malden Ctr. (constrained), Fitchburg and Wachusett (on traffic-separated turnouts near enough to end of line), Lawrence (for now, as on turnout w/ Downeaster skipping), potentially Gloucester (near enough to end of line), and would-be extension stops like shortie Peabody Branch and end-of-the-line on the Lowell-NH extension it's a safe bet that every northside stop is going to be double-track. Southside's more variable because of the more complicated branchline situation, but general assumption is that on mainlines DT is the rule except for some terminal stops like Forge Park & Foxboro where reverses happen well shorter than next meets.

 

[Riverside]

^ Thanks F-Line. Lots of great stuff.

On the last point, though -- totally agreed that double-tracking is a no-brainer in those places. However, if that is the intended proposal, then it's incredibly confusingly documented in the map and infographic.

To whit:

Two platforms, two passengers, one track. I get the need for simplification, but...

Moreover, if you look at the map, it sure looks like "2nd platform" varies independently with "double track" -- see for example Ipswich (2nd platform and double track) vs Hamilton/Wenham (2nd platform but no double track):

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Also...they want to electrify derelict Castle Hill freight yard south of the Salem Tunnel portal as a storage yard for all these magical Beverly EMU turns that have to intermix with diesels...but they won't consider north-of-portal North St. Yard on the Peabody Branch accessible from both legs of the wye on a mile-shorter deadhead that doesn't foul the tunnel AND the Salem mainline platforms in the process and verifiably is 100% T property whilst it's sketchy at best how much of Castle Hill is the state's vs. Pan Am's.

What...in...the...everloving...hell kind of fact-checking is that??? This is shockingly sloppy by TM's standards. Who rush-released this? It is so sorely and obviously not ready for prime-time.

 

[Wash]

The only people who are gonna mind that there are operational flaws in TM RUR plan is us. We're it. We aren't the target audience for this document. There are hundreds of thousands of people in the Commonwealth, including plenty of elected officials, who just looked at that map, said "cool, more trains" and never gave it a second glance.

If any regional rail projects are going to get done, we need to convince voters (and politicians and the business community) that it's important to spend money on transit, and giving them a picture of what their system could look like is super important. *That* is what this document is. It could have been just a bunch of crayon scribbles and it still would have done its job.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

The only people who are gonna mind that there are operational flaws in TM RUR plan is us. We're it. We aren't the target audience for this document. There are hundreds of thousands of people in the Commonwealth, including plenty of elected officials, who just looked at that map, said "cool, more trains" and never gave it a second glance.

That's not true at all. There's a multitude of audiences this is intended for, and the whoppers cut like a thousand pinpricks.

Example: The infill stations. OK...South Salem has been a burning priority ever since the North Shore Transit Improvements Study 16 years ago. Obvious conclusion. But Westborough Center appearing out of the void for the first time proposed for anyone...but not Newton Corner with its multitude of bus connections their own bullet points say is crucial for Urban Rail done right??? How do they explain that one to a layperson? Where's the Montvale/Woburn infill on the shortest walk and most direct bus to Woburn Center? Isn't that crucial for developing connections through the inner 'burbs? Why is 'Zombie Wonderland' re-appearing on this plan at the worst possible crux for local TOD, but not Polaroid/128??? Those are dog-ate-homework level oversights that are going to rankle the loud hyper-local constituencies they need to sway with buy-in. Like...where's the "Cool...my stop gets more trains?" hook if you live in Woburn or Watertown Sq. or work in one of the Waltham office parks?


Second...it's supposed to be a guiding-principle implementation plan. Top-level talking points have never been a weakness of TM, and they are no weakness here. All those biggest-picture bullets are completely on-point, and consistent as ever. But the implementation plan is supposed to flesh things out further. It's supposed to provide easy-grasp breadcrumbs to all of the affected stakeholders about how this is going to break out. But by A1-bulleting the need for flexibility and nimble-decision making...the devil in the details has to show where they can pivot and contour to challenges, reshuffle the deck, adjust. And that's where it falls apart, because so many of the items are cherry-picked at almost random and the charts feature too much stuff that's troublingly self-contradictory. It does not take a foamer obsessive to see a looming problem with "South Station must have 1 platform per service" and "don't you dare build wasteful SSX because ops 'reform' will smooth it over" as declarative statements in immediate succession. Any reader capable of basic arithmetic can see there's a giant honking contradiction here in # of services exceeding platforms, and declarative statements upending each other. It does not take a foamer obsessive to see the insistence on single-level vehicles at immediate odds with the FCMB presentation from the bi-level heavy RFI bids that was widely discussed on such not-foamer forums as r/Boston and UHub. Other stuff like how the Eastern Route's going to realize the benefits of EMU's when a majority of the schedule is going to still have to be diesel are whoppers big enough for anyone to pick up on. Then they're going to look back to that "Phase I Principles" bullet list and go "HUH???" And there's no excuses for the problems Riverside pointed out with the map--supposedly the easiest piece of this to grasp--nonsensically applying its own legend to things as basic as "Is this a second platform or just a second track?"


Third...it's a guide for the local politicians who are supposed to be using this as talking points to sell to their communities. It's problematic that we get reams of info about how precious Beverly is as a 'justice' but have nothing--looking at those infill choices--offering parity for Waltham, Woburn, etc.? You have to spread the breadcrumbs around the region show-me style...especially for the routes that have to wait for later phases. Where are they even showing placemarkers for future coming attractions? You have things like TM contradicting EVERY iteration of the Rail Vision on which mainline Haverhill runs up. Inquiring minds in Winchester, Woburn, and Wilmington who've already attended those presentations by the T want to know where their :15 minute frequencies came from when they already got the easy-grasp answer from the T that Haverhill would be the half-contributor. Now TM's saying something completely different, but isn't saying where the frequencies now come from. Isn't that just a *little* extremely important for now very confused Winchesterites???

Another one for the Town Managers: Where from left-field does that thing about installing quadrant gates on the Eastern Route come from? Like...that's not something--at all--that makes the trains run faster. Nor is it a philosophical choice of our Euroland ops-superiors. It's either a >100 MPH corridor like the Springfield Line where that's FRA-mandated (not relevant here), or there's 50 years of crash and police data about gate evaders or stuck-on-tracks incidents statistically informing those decisions one-by-one. i.e. The numbers say that crossing is a born troublemaker needing toothier gate protection and those crossings don't exceed the law of averages...as cut-and-dried as it gets. Town PD's and DPW's are already fully conversant in that. So how did it end up that the stuff that's supposed to be most easily parsable by a Town Manager to his/her minions reads like gobbledygook?


And finally, we know the Admin. is going to throw the kitchen sink's worth of concern-trolling at this. So the outright mistakes, leaps-of-faith, and suppositions that are going to get yellow-flagged by the engineering dept. cut like a thousand pinpricks. When they knew ahead of time they had to protect that flank. No...they have nothing to fear from the Internet. They have loads to fear if one in-house call to Amtrak's chief engineer for electrical transmission or a South Coast FEIR staffer gives them bad news about Stoughton Line substation siting throwing a monkey wrench in their Phase IA plans. What's their response going to be to those experts..."Well that's, like, your opinion maaan!" Those flanks have no reason to stay that nakedly exposed when TM's talent roster is loaded with people who know exactly who-to-call to get informed answers on that. Is it too much to expect asking an obvious technical question before rush-releasing, or to ID the unanswered questions as ones where a little priority-shuffle flexibility is warranted? After all, they're the ones who raised the bar for exactly that level of self-checking in that "Phase I Principles" list.

If any regional rail projects are going to get done, we need to convince voters (and politicians and the business community) that it's important to spend money on transit, and giving them a picture of what their system could look like is super important. *That* is what this document is. It could have been just a bunch of crayon scribbles and it still would have done its job.

No...that's what this document is supposed to be. It reads like one guy pulling an all-nighter and submitting the rough draft as final for grading. A multipurpose document for multi-level audience shouldn't be upchucking examples backing it into a corner of self-contradiction and confustion for damn near each of those audiences. It's a stunningly sloppy quality-control job by TransitMatters standards, who usually don't let stray tangents upend their core message. The lowest-level bullets on this thing shoot the highest-level bullets all full of buckshot...for reasons inexplicable except that the document author seemed too rushed on the job to bother synthesizing the whole organization's history from the general to the specific with any degree of carefulness. The A1 bullets are still gold, but...egad, they just can't be making chintzy unforced errors at this rate on the supporting lists. Or be bunkering down in self-resistance mode that real-world project priority might not unfold exactly like their abstract-world demands it should, such that they seem to be turning away viable avenues for adjustment.

It reads like an un-proofread draft where somebody was in such a rush they lapsed into 'blog' mode and forgot how precariously varied an audience they were writing for. Retract it and re-release it in 1 week's time with a LOT of tightening-the-fuck-up. Bullets and maps self-agreeing with each other as FIRST-priority fix amongst all else.

 

[tysmith95]

Looking at transit matters proposal, I don't think they're proposing short turns on the Nbyport Rockport line. It looks like the plan is half hour service on both branches combining to 15 min service from Beverly inward.

Beverly is still the 2nd highest ridership station on the north side. Transit matters proposal makes sense when looking at ridership projections.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Looking at transit matters proposal, I don't think they're proposing short turns on the Nbyport Rockport line. It looks like the plan is half hour service on both branches combining to 15 min service from Beverly inward.

Beverly is still the 2nd highest ridership station on the north side. Transit matters proposal makes sense when looking at ridership projections.

Yeah...but they're not electrifying either branch, just to Bev. So it's going to be an EMU line...that just happens to be running diesels all the time.

I fully agree with you...:30 to NBP + :30 to RKP = :15 to BVD. Now what amongst those schedules is actually touching a wire making this a first-priority electrification?


Same deal with how do you Urban Rail the inner Lowell Line if Haverhill is suddenly not moving over. The Rail Vision's own plan was a logical :30 LOW + :30 HVL = :15 WIL On TM's implementation plan half that equation is now missing.


These are not small whoppers.

 

[tysmith95]

Beverly to Boston has much higher ridership potential than Boston to Anderson imo.

With electrification, the closely spaced stops in the inner Haverhill aren't as much of an issue for Andover/Lawrence/Haverhill.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Beverly to Boston has much higher ridership potential than Boston to Anderson imo.

With electrification, the closely spaced stops in the inner Haverhill aren't as much of an issue for Andover/Lawrence/Haverhill.

Without question that's the biggest northside corridor. The incoherence is this:

• Beverly is in their words a first-priority electrification...the only non-southside member of the first tier, which means it must bear all costs for outfitting the Terminal District and Boston Engine Terminal. Okie-doke...makes sense given the demand.
• ...but branch electrification is explicitly deferred in their words to later phases, meaning they'll run diesel but at :30 frequencies to each Newburyport & Rockport. Okie-doke...Rome wasn't built in a day. However. . .
• "Environmental Justice", they say, is only served with a substantial EMU service presence to Beverly. But since the branches are staying diesel till later phases, and the tunnel + Salem main platforms + swing bridge are collectively a bottleneck for above-and-beyonds...where do you find the room to cram any EMU's amidst those :30 + :30 = :15 branch diesel schedules???
• Beverly Depot--specifically--is rated of utmost baseline importance for serving on all trains, such that the Peabody-side turnout at Salem is not proposed for re-use...depriving the means of goosing that schedule of more EMU's to offset the diesel majority. Moreover, to run any EMU's to Beverly they are proposing having to deadhead them on shift changes back over the swing bridge, through the Salem platforms, and through the tunnel to Castle Hill Yard bypassing the nearer-by yard off the Peabody wye...chewing more EMU slots that can't be holding revenue passengers.
• How does this add up as a first systemwide priority when you're spending all that for electrification infrastructure that won't be used by practically all the schedule, which is still dominated by Rockburyport thru-running diesels??? That doesn't jibe with costs or "justice".
• Why are there no pivots for this electric service shorting of their own plan phasing's creation?
  • Given the lingering diesel majority on the mainline schedules, shouldn't there be more evaluation of whether wiring straight to Newburyport and/or Rockport needs to be a first-phase priority instead of a deferral? If, in their own words, "justice" isn't served without majority-EMU service.
  • Why are the Salem-turnout offsets being left off the table as first-phase EMU traffic management options? If "justice" must include Beverly but Beverly is going to remain majority-diesel for many years...their own definition of "justice" is suspect. So what's with the unusually hard line against Salem turning where avoidance of the swing bridge and use of North St. instead of Castle Hill yards allows more EMU service packing?
  • Should the northside be included at all in the first-phase electrifications if resources spent on the Terminal District + shops prevent this schedule from going all-electric to Newburyport & Rockport and thus needing to remain mostly-diesel on the mainline not making adequate use of the new infrastructure? Does it make more sense to defer it to next phase and substitute an easier-wired southside line like Franklin/Foxboro instead if there aren't even going to be more than minority EMU's using the new wires. Yes, that's a compromise on raw demand served...but as ^all above^ "justice" isn't being served on the North Shore by their own definition if most of the trains on the Eastern still have to be diesel until a later phase. Is it better to shoot for another completist South wire-up on first phase so that's money well-spent and EMU's well-serving...then make sure the next phase loads up for bear to make more substantial splash up North?

Their own logic doesn't follow through on the phasing.


It's similar with Lowell & Haverhill/Reading.

• Neither mainline is on the first-wave electrifications. Makes sense...Eastern is the consensus highest-demand up north, the others take their seat behind it.
• Both mainlines were to do diesel-run Urban Rail for their debut services until the later-phase electrification. Okie-doke...we know that well-managed the push-pull sets can make the schedules, so long as the higher cost chew isn't a forever thing (and it's not).
• The Rail Vision says: Reading has to go back to being a separate solo schedule divorced from Haverhill in order to make :15, because of the single-tracking. Those meets can be staged when it's all- 128 short-turns, but not when the thru 495 trains and their longer platform dwells are part of the mix. Okie-dokie...not controversial at all, that's exactly how things used to be.
• The Rail Vision says: If you add Lowell @ :30 + Haverhill @ :30 to the NH Main, you net :15 to Wilmington without needing any big production. Awesome!...two mainlines solved in one move.
• TM says Haverhill is going to continue to interline by Reading, in direct contradiction to the Rail Vision re: Reading Line capacity constraints and in direct contradiction to how the existing schedule starts losing the plot via overloading on those inner stops. How is TM going to achieve what the Rail Vision is not balancing both Haverhill & Reading together? This is not a first-wave electrification on either TM's or the Rail Vision's plans, so it'll have to be done with diesels. Where's the proof that such a surprise change in routing will work???
• If Haverhill's gone from the NH Main, where are half of those Urban Rail frequencies to Woburn/Wilmington coming from? That's a first-wave implementation as diesel, already kosher-vetted by the Rail Vision. Now half the frequencies are missing. Where's the backfill coming from???
• What are the possible planning pivots now that TWO of their arbitrary choices have put two schedules in conflict: Haverhill/Reading which may not be able to coexist, and Lowell which may not backfill enough frequencies to be Urban Rail anymore. These are acknowledged later-priority electrifications on demand, so what's the set of diesel magic tricks that makes this work???

Again...their own arbitrary logic sends them on direct-conflict collision course that doesn't agree with the phasing recs that are the entire purpose of the document.



All of the observations we're noting here re: demand, interlaid schedule arithmetic, and so on are completely correct. That's why it's so baffling that this supposedly authoritative phasing document keeps self-owning itself with direct conflicts vs. its own 'guiding vision' goals and nonsense butcherings of simple things like map legends meaning what they say. It's an all-around mess...for every audience that needs to parse it.

 

[tysmith95]

They're a political advocacy group, not necessarily an operations group.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

They're a political advocacy group, not necessarily an operations group.

Another eminently valid observation. So why are they tasking themselves with releasing an authoritative implementation plan for ops when the resulting work is so poorly-vetted the whoppers don't escape casual-most skim?

Overtly or inadvertently, these contradictions were a choice they invited wholly on themselves. Nobody put a gun to their heads to go out on an unsteady limb...except apparently themselves.

 

[Tallguy]

I am reminded of TRoosevelt and getting into the arena. Put up or shut up. Join TM and actually influence public policy or found your own organization.

Manufacturers suggested bi-levels because thats what the T buys. The system probably needs both.

So, you do realize that there are more phases coming? Perhaps Reading/Lowell routing of Haverhill comes in a later wave?

Disagreement over priorities is not a gotcha moment...its just disagreement.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I am reminded of TRoosevelt and getting into the arena. Put up or shut up. Join TM and actually influence public policy or found your own organization.

And pray tell, what organization have you founded that I may join for the privilege of being lectured upon high for not doing enough of my part?

Nope...that is a BS argument, and hostile as hell. I wholly support what TM advocates and want them in the BEST possible position to influence policy. That does not make them above constructive criticism when they get wholly out-of-character sloppy. And this is a very sloppy document for all the factual errors and self-contradictions that could've been caught in a proofread. It's not going to do them any favors to present it in this state of apparent draft form and get torn to shreds in front of a hostile Admin. brass. Torn to shreds over contradictions that never had to be in there if they just followed their own logical structure down to the detail and PROOFREAD before releasing.

"GTFO and found your own organization" implies somebody is above learning experiences. Dear God is that a toxic attitude for hashing advocacy into policy. I'm reminded of toxic open-source computing communities where "Write your own patch or GTFO" is the overused epithet by folks who've lost all interest in user experience and are just wielding blunt instruments to shut down dissent. Thank heavens the actual TM doesn't display those tendencies. If they're listening, a good--THOROUGH--group proofread is the place to start.

Manufacturers suggested bi-levels because thats what the T buys. The system probably needs both.

False...there were an equal number of single-level and bi-level submissions, because the RFI wording was equally inviting to both. Two of the single-level submissions happen to be from companies that can't take federal funding because of trade policy, or company policy to close American assembly facilities leaving them ineligible for Buy America. 2 out of the 3 flats bidders are functionally ineligible because of circumstances beyond our control. Two others pitching bi's are not able to pitch singles at this time because their FRA compliance for import bodies was squared first for previous bi-level orders. Oh, well, that's timing for you in a timing-specific procurement world. We don't always get to choose the wave we want to ride when our buy windows are >here< and the wider options don't open up till over >>there>>.

Nobody was tipping a hand towards bi-levels. Every RFI/RFP that goes into the wild is subject to market conditions at the moment they're sent into the wild. This is just how the chips fell. It's not a zero-out. Hitachi's not out of the running yet...they're very big boys. But the RFI does what an RFI does: establish likely probabilities based on what the market will bear, and inform adjustments.

Where is TM going to inform itself of that adjustment? We have now established that the single-levels they are demanding are very unlikely to be available. So what does a Phase IA stocked with bi-levels look like? What do later phases with second bites at the single-level apple look like? They can't do what you just did with that "that's what the T buys" comment...throw shade at the RFI process sans attribution because they didn't like the outcome probabilities. Either point to real evidence of a flaw in the RFI process that put its hand on the scale towards a preordained outcome or accept that for the next 4-year CIP term that this is what the market will bear.

So, you do realize that there are more phases coming? Perhaps Reading/Lowell routing of Haverhill comes in a later wave?

Does TM realize that later phases are coming? Because they spec :15 to Woburn by the completion of Phase I, and in Appendix II have half of that supplied by :30 to Lowell and :30 to Haverhill. But at the same time have Haverhill running thru Reading on the "Bottleneck Elimination Program" in Phase I. They state these diametrically opposed things on consecutive pages in the document. Who's driving those trains...Schrödinger's Cat???

Disagreement over priorities is not a gotcha moment...its just disagreement.

I didn't realize anyone thought there was a game going on here that had to be won at the expense of somebody losing. Please elaborate further. That is a form of public policy comment I'm not familiar with.

 

[Riverside]

Full disclosure: being well aware that TM members are active here, I wrote my feedback under the tacit assumption that in all likelihood they would read it. So, for example, my example about the second platform stuff was written in the spirit of flagging up typos and suggesting improvements, and was not intended to trash the proposal, or the efforts behind it.

My hope is to be a friendly but constructively critical audience. To any TM folks reading this -- my apologies if I came across in any other way.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I don't even think it's unworkable. I'm just shocked they didn't follow their own blueprints for breaking out the detail. Like Riverside said up page, this thing reads like it was started 3 months ago with the 'Principles' bullets...and then it was left idle and picked up Tuesday night to infill the breakout charts on a Red Bull-infused all-nighter that wasn't proofread before submission. TM's been exerting gravitational influence for sooooo long on this process that you basically get precisely the detail breakout they're asking for in a mix-match of Rail Vision slides presented to the FCMB. So, really, this document wasn't making new decisions...just synthesizing the whole crescendo of past RV meetings into bite-size form for an audience that consisted of casual riders + involved riders + local pols for talking point guidance + short/sweet and relatively airtight summary to State to keep them on-message. There's not even a lot of ops-explainer required here because that's already been done. You just need to lay out the breadcrumbs, and make sure that they're well-distributed to give everyone a buy-in.

As part of those breadcrumbs, and as an aspiring implementation plan, it's also got to duly denote where bang-for-buck chunking could resequence the project phasing. So tough spots like how much EMU usage do you get out of first northside poke vs. slotting another southside completion need to be duly marked. Stuff like the out-of-our-hands market factors driving single vs. bi-level purchasing, and adjustments therein, have to be duly noted. Things like where South Coast Phase II dovetails with Stoughton electrification, and whether unfavorable answer to unanswered questions forces a deck reshuffle have to be duly noted.

They didn't do it. We have factual inaccuracies. We have direct ops contradictions that don't backtrace to any prior Rail Vision action. We have soapboxing about 'justice' communities but service plans running contradictory to the stated definition of 'justice'. We have really easy offsets to known thorny capacity problems being left totally on the cutting room floor because of force-fed integrity-of-concept making things harder. We have those A1 lists of guiding 'principles' being undercut by actual recs. We have lists of infill stations no one has ever seen before, omissions from prior consensus lists of most-wanted infills that have never been omitted before, and giant geographical holes in the system where breadcrumbs are not being set out for whole communities' buy-ins. We have a very embarassing case at South Station of argumentative dogma colliding head-on with *painfully* basic arithmetic...because they set it up as an arithmetic solve but followed up with hot-belief dogma (on an issue than CAN/IS easily parted of its constituent controversies). We have things that don't look like they could ever survive a good proofread making it in there as out-from-left-field recs as if the document author was over-opinioning to make deadline. We have these super-lowballed estimates that don't give any hint as to comparative origin, passed off flat-world when we know TM's own staff are some of the leading authorities IN the world about how all costs are not flat-world...and no breadcrumbs given to how (while too-lowballed) they're probably still more realistic than the state's highball/tankapalooza numbers. Advantage, tragically: state, for lack of show-me breadcrumbs and ceding the cost narrative to the naysayers.


This is not a trajectory the document should've ever arrived at had it followed its own guiding principles all the way through. Followed through and was thoroughly vetted top-to-bottom by other TM staffers before release. As structured, it basically should've been self-writing because the things it needed to say on the implementation breakout were all Captain Obvious things already hashed to the nines in public comment. Bullet out, footnote the uncertainties and flex for adjustments, and paint a clean and accessible picture that takes it from the generic ("principles" level) to specific (likeliest phasing given what we know). There shouldn't be a need for ops-explainers at all here, were it not for the sheer quantity of baffling errors and self-contradictions. Right down to screwing up their own map legend for the "TL;DR" crowd.

I don't know what kind of 11th hour rush job could made things go so awry off a starting blueprint that was damn near perfect for selling its own story and following its own breadcrumbs into the detail. But it happened. And they're going to have to deal with it happening and leaving a badly-exposed flank for the state to pick apart. It's still COVID time, so it won't kill them to try to spin this as a draft while they try to tighten it up. But tighten it the fuck up they must. TM got this far getting results from its advocacy by making amazingly few unforced errors, and achieving a consistency and universality in message that's frankly rare in citizens' advocacy. This is a very prone spot to be breaking that streak. Faster they tighten this up and flesh it out to its natural conclusion, the better.

Full disclosure: being well aware that TM members are active here, I wrote my feedback under the tacit assumption that in all likelihood they would read it. So, for example, my example about the second platform stuff was written in the spirit of flagging up typos and suggesting improvements, and was not intended to trash the proposal, or the efforts behind it.

My hope is to be a friendly but constructively critical audience. To any TM folks reading this -- my apologies if I came across in any other way.

As insane as I can sometimes come off, I never post as if somebody in-the-know might not be reading. MBTA employees and others connected are--and always have been--all over the major messageboards and blogrolls. Or so I've been told by those in-the-know of in-the-know dating as far back as '05 (I'm not personally one of those second-degreers who knows). You'll never see a self-ID'd T employee out themselves online because there's labor strictness about that that runs almost universal across transit agencies. It's why the forums are overrepresented by RR/commuter rail/Amtrak employees because the union protections for social media free speech in the RR biz sector are way stronger than the transit sector. Plenty of self-ID'd Keolis folks...but never ever a self-ID'd MBTA'er. It's not kosher for the Carmen's Local members or any desk jockeys to self-ID.

But they're lurking intently at minimum if not posting-in-disguise. Way too many Pesaturo tweets over the years have been worded as if in semi-direct response to an online thread for it to be a coincidence. Way too many.

 

[Riverside]

^ Yeah, my point is more just that I wasn't trying to be adversarial.

 

[datadyne007]

Hi everyone. Thank you for your feedback. We are reviewing every single comment. This feedback is all extremely helpful. This is the kind of technical feedback that we can't get from regular media comments and such.

I'll let you know when we have some further information.

Best,
-Tim L
VP of Ops/Communications Director, TransitMatters

 

[StillInTheHood]

Tim, I’m incredibly grateful that the Transit Matters team is listening …

While I LOVE what Transit Matters is doing, it does strike me that the team gets hung up overmuch on a couple of bugaboos, as F-line points out. Specifically:

• The bugaboo about South Station expansion. Even without F-line’s detailed knowledge of rail yard ops constraints and the minutiae of challenges to support frequent, clock-facing turnarounds, it does seem like a matter of layman's algebra that South Station could use at least a few more platforms. In the real world, little equipment glitches, late crews, track problems, and so forth are daily issues, and the more physical wiggle room you have at the terminus, the more quickly you are able to recover without a hellacious cascade of delays and cancellations. Having notional “dedicated” platforms to specific lines (including of course Amtrak!) is an excellent approach that ultimately simplifies operations and makes rail transit more commuter friendly, but in my own big city commuting experience, without some physical platform redundancy, operational variability leads to the nominal “regular” assignments becoming as much the exception as the rule and the concept becomes meaningless. The mad rush as platform assignments are posted at Penn Station is incredibly commuter-unfriendly. Obviously there’s no need to gold-plate an expansion of South Station, and you guys can argue with F-Line about exactly how many additional platforms are required, but Transit Matters would serve itself well with much more flexibility on this point. It’s not a hill that makes any sense fighting for, much less dying on, and it sadly dovetails with naïve arguments about a North-South rail link that are also a distraction (That is: the majority of trains will not be NSRL through trains, so SS will still need lots of platforms if overall frequency is going to increase by an order of magnitude … investment in a few more platforms would not be ‘wasted’ when NSRL is funded).
• The shibboleth about single-level cars. Yes, yes, we get it, single-level coaches facilitate shorter dwell times, but one can’t help but wonder: is Transit Matters’ viewpoint driven by staring at theoretical numbers in a spreadsheet, or has anyone there actually commuted regularly on lines that have a mix of both single and bi-level trains? I have, both in Europe (Zurich) and here (regularly on NJ Transit and less frequently on LIRR). The advantage of bi-levels, obviously, is that there are more seats per railcar, and that also means that more space can be dedicated to seating for disabled persons and bulky luggage near the exits without a huge sacrifice of overall seating capacity. In the abstract, you might think that NJT’s old single-level units would be preferable if you were, say, hauling two big suitcases on the Northeast Corridor to Newark Airport, but you’d be wrong … the seats on most of their old single-level cars run end-to-end, so you need to awkwardly jam big bags into a seat with you if the train is lightly loaded, or block the aisle, or stand the whole way at the end of the car. NJT could, of course, pull out more seats to increase luggage space, but that points to the second constraint: if your evening return from Penn to New Brunswick happens to coincide with the conclusion of a Garden event, you groan when you see a single-level coach, because that means if you aren’t near the head of the pack you’ll be awkwardly jammed into the larger side of a 3x2 or worse, uncomfortably standing for forty minutes to Metropark. I’d argue that these inconveniences matter a lot more to Joe Commuter than a few more minutes’ wait to get down the stairs at the terminus.

And yes, it’s only a matter of a couple of minutes, because whatever the spreadsheet might say, the dwell time issue really is a terminus and main station issue. Again, consider the Northeast Corridor, the busiest line on NJT, with far more traffic than any MBTA line. Among the 12 stations, the only perceptible slowness of boarding/deboarding on bi-levels I ever experienced was at NY Penn itself, and to a much, much lesser extent Newark Penn and Secaucus on the very busiest peak trains. At the other ten stations it was never an issue. Not every train makes every stop, and boarding at the origin point (other than Penn) is rarely time constrained. Even with NJT’s much maligned bi-level door configuration, I never felt bi-levels resulted in extended dwell times at Edison or Hamilton or Linden, and, let’s face it, the MBTA’s network is comprised of stations with best-case ridership that will be much more comparable to those stations than they will ever be to Newark or Jamaica on the LIRR or Zurich Hbf. I am not a regular rider of the MBTA, are they that awful at unloading bi-levels?

These issues come together, of course. If you have more flexibility at the terminus, you can afford to be a bit less fussed about dwell times, because that’s where they will bite you the hardest. So why not plan around a few extra platforms for true dedicated lines and a minute or two more buffer for turnarounds and deboarding? It’s not like single-level coaches are half the cost or weight of bi-levels. Sure, you’ll have a lot of empty seats if you are always running (say) 4 bi-level coaches where you could be running 5 or 6 single-levels, but if the capital and operational costs are basically the same, who cares about the nominal seat occupancy? When a problem results in a cancellation or a special event causes a one-time surge, you’re much better off. Buffers increase reliability and reliability is as important as frequency to increasing ridership. Transit Matters sometimes seems too fixated on prioritizing minute-by-minute efficiency (let’s turn the crews five minutes faster! We can work around this extra platform requirement!) over the huge real world benefit of relatively low-cost, built-in redundancy.

 

[Tallguy]

Tim, I’m incredibly grateful that the Transit Matters team is listening …

While I LOVE what Transit Matters is doing, it does strike me that the team gets hung up overmuch on a couple of bugaboos, as F-line points out. Specifically:

• The bugaboo about South Station expansion. Even without F-line’s detailed knowledge of rail yard ops constraints and the minutiae of challenges to support frequent, clock-facing turnarounds, it does seem like a matter of layman's algebra that South Station could use at least a few more platforms. In the real world, little equipment glitches, late crews, track problems, and so forth are daily issues, and the more physical wiggle room you have at the terminus, the more quickly you are able to recover without a hellacious cascade of delays and cancellations. Having notional “dedicated” platforms to specific lines (including of course Amtrak!) is an excellent approach that ultimately simplifies operations and makes rail transit more commuter friendly, but in my own big city commuting experience, without some physical platform redundancy, operational variability leads to the nominal “regular” assignments becoming as much the exception as the rule and the concept becomes meaningless. The mad rush as platform assignments are posted at Penn Station is incredibly commuter-unfriendly. Obviously there’s no need to gold-plate an expansion of South Station, and you guys can argue with F-Line about exactly how many additional platforms are required, but Transit Matters would serve itself well with much more flexibility on this point. It’s not a hill that makes any sense fighting for, much less dying on, and it sadly dovetails with naïve arguments about a North-South rail link that are also a distraction (That is: the majority of trains will not be NSRL through trains, so SS will still need lots of platforms if overall frequency is going to increase by an order of magnitude … investment in a few more platforms would not be ‘wasted’ when NSRL is funded).
• The shibboleth about single-level cars. Yes, yes, we get it, single-level coaches facilitate shorter dwell times, but one can’t help but wonder: is Transit Matters’ viewpoint driven by staring at theoretical numbers in a spreadsheet, or has anyone there actually commuted regularly on lines that have a mix of both single and bi-level trains? I have, both in Europe (Zurich) and here (regularly on NJ Transit and less frequently on LIRR). The advantage of bi-levels, obviously, is that there are more seats per railcar, and that also means that more space can be dedicated to seating for disabled persons and bulky luggage near the exits without a huge sacrifice of overall seating capacity. In the abstract, you might think that NJT’s old single-level units would be preferable if you were, say, hauling two big suitcases on the Northeast Corridor to Newark Airport, but you’d be wrong … the seats on most of their old single-level cars run end-to-end, so you need to awkwardly jam big bags into a seat with you if the train is lightly loaded, or block the aisle, or stand the whole way at the end of the car. NJT could, of course, pull out more seats to increase luggage space, but that points to the second constraint: if your evening return from Penn to New Brunswick happens to coincide with the conclusion of a Garden event, you groan when you see a single-level coach, because that means if you aren’t near the head of the pack you’ll be awkwardly jammed into the larger side of a 3x2 or worse, uncomfortably standing for forty minutes to Metropark. I’d argue that these inconveniences matter a lot more to Joe Commuter than a few more minutes’ wait to get down the stairs at the terminus.

And yes, it’s only a matter of a couple of minutes, because whatever the spreadsheet might say, the dwell time issue really is a terminus and main station issue. Again, consider the Northeast Corridor, the busiest line on NJT, with far more traffic than any MBTA line. Among the 12 stations, the only perceptible slowness of boarding/deboarding on bi-levels I ever experienced was at NY Penn itself, and to a much, much lesser extent Newark Penn and Secaucus on the very busiest peak trains. At the other ten stations it was never an issue. Not every train makes every stop, and boarding at the origin point (other than Penn) is rarely time constrained. Even with NJT’s much maligned bi-level door configuration, I never felt bi-levels resulted in extended dwell times at Edison or Hamilton or Linden, and, let’s face it, the MBTA’s network is comprised of stations with best-case ridership that will be much more comparable to those stations than they will ever be to Newark or Jamaica on the LIRR or Zurich Hbf. I am not a regular rider of the MBTA, are they that awful at unloading bi-levels?

These issues come together, of course. If you have more flexibility at the terminus, you can afford to be a bit less fussed about dwell times, because that’s where they will bite you the hardest. So why not plan around a few extra platforms for true dedicated lines and a minute or two more buffer for turnarounds and deboarding? It’s not like single-level coaches are half the cost or weight of bi-levels. Sure, you’ll have a lot of empty seats if you are always running (say) 4 bi-level coaches where you could be running 5 or 6 single-levels, but if the capital and operational costs are basically the same, who cares about the nominal seat occupancy? When a problem results in a cancellation or a special event causes a one-time surge, you’re much better off. Buffers increase reliability and reliability is as important as frequency to increasing ridership. Transit Matters sometimes seems too fixated on prioritizing minute-by-minute efficiency (let’s turn the crews five minutes faster! We can work around this extra platform requirement!) over the huge real world benefit of relatively low-cost, built-in redundancy.

So, in RRWorld, the Southside would run 8tph on the Worcester Line, 4tph Providence, 4tph Stoughton, 4tph Franklin, 4tph Fairmount. Lets assume 6tph on OC.
Thats 30 tph. With 2 tracks(2 tunnel option) in the NSRL, there would be more than enough capacity for all of them. And I dispute your notion that NSRL advocacy is "naive". Because Steffie's minions have yet again sandbagged the numbers for a project they don't want?