Seaport Transportation

Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

I feel like Davey is reading Crazy Transit Pitches. This really sounds like gimmick transit.

Maybe they want some more listed uses for a potential DMU fleet to "justify" the purchases.

I don't know how thrilled the FRA is going to be with the idea of moving people on yard tracks. Also, are they going to change ends at Back Bay station? That would seem to be a capacity clogger on the NEC.

Perhaps they can install a passing siding somewhere and double the potential frequency by staging meets.
 
Last edited:
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

I would use DMU's for the Needham & Greenbush Branches....
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

Matthew said:
I feel like Davey is reading Crazy Transit Pitches. This really sounds like gimmick transit.

Maybe they want some more listed uses for a potential DMU fleet to "justify" the purchases.

I don't know how thrilled the FRA is going to be with the idea of moving people on yard tracks. Also, are they going to change ends at Back Bay station? That would seem to be a capacity clogger on the NEC.

Perhaps they can install a passing siding somewhere and double the potential frequency by staging meets.
Click to expand...

Hell Crazy Transit Pitches at least offers an overarching vision. What would have been a major announcement is adding tracks in the transitway for shared modes, and preparing to bring the Green Line down to the NEC, to BBY and then take over Huntington thereafter. Talk about rehabbing the Tremont St tunnel with an extension to Tufts. You know, real transit planning.

This BBY-BCEC plan is a gimmicky, crippled-from-the-start stop-gap for real transit improvements.
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

BussesAin'tTrains said:
This BBY-BCEC plan is a gimmicky, crippled-from-the-start stop-gap for real transit improvements.
Click to expand...

Everything the state has proposed and built for transit to the SBW is a gimmicky, crippled-from-the-start stop-gap for real transit improvements.
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

I mean, this is just so the BCEC can refer to all the hotel rooms in Copley as a single-seat 10 minute ride away, right? Sounds like it'll be very beneficial to their expansion dreams. Even if it couldn't come any faster than every 25 minutes, to be able to say that trains leave Copley at :00 and :30 and leave BCEC at :15 and :45 isn't so bad from the perspective of convention attendees.
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

...and with a connection to the World Trade Center Silver Line stop, it'd make trips between Copley and Logan about 10 minutes faster too, right?
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

vanshnookenraggen said:
Everything the state has proposed and built for transit to the SBW is a gimmicky, crippled-from-the-start stop-gap for real transit improvements.
Click to expand...

Yup. No arguments here.
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

blinkieob said:
I mean, this is just so the BCEC can refer to all the hotel rooms in Copley as a single-seat 10 minute ride away, right? Sounds like it'll be very beneficial to their expansion dreams. Even if it couldn't come any faster than every 25 minutes, to be able to say that trains leave Copley at :00 and :30 and leave BCEC at :15 and :45 isn't so bad from the perspective of convention attendees.
Click to expand...

That's probably how BCEC is going to market it if it happens. Not 10 minutes though. Probably 15.

I don't this this will have a connection to the World Trade stop. I mean they could fare charge it that way, but you'd still have to walk the block or two to get between them. Not a huge deal, but not a direct connection.
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

Jesus! How much fucking pull does the MCCA have!?!?!
Overpaying for land. Subsidizing 1000 room hotels. And now direct train service.
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

Here is a quick map I threw together showing the Silver Line, the new DMU service, and possible Red or Green Line extensions (not including the original Red Line extension to Logan proposed at the same time as the Silver Line)

http://goo.gl/maps/qywFN (you may have to turn the transit map option On)

Extending the Green Line will do everything they want AND be a boon to Chinatown which is, as we know, quickly filling up with apartments. If this was Europe it would have already been built.
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

BussesAin'tTrains said:
That's probably how BCEC is going to market it if it happens. Not 10 minutes though. Probably 15.

I don't this this will have a connection to the World Trade stop. I mean they could fare charge it that way, but you'd still have to walk the block or two to get between them. Not a huge deal, but not a direct connection.
Click to expand...

Speaking of connections... I've always wondered why they don't connect Copley and Back Bay via some sort of tunnel? I'm guessing the biggest reason is the Mass Pike being in the way, but there's got to be a way around that? Maybe it's too expensive.
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

FenwayResident said:
Speaking of connections... I've always wondered why they don't connect Copley and Back Bay via some sort of tunnel? I'm guessing the biggest reason is the Mass Pike being in the way, but there's got to be a way around that? Maybe it's too expensive.
Click to expand...

You'd have to build a gerbil tube that would span 3 city blocks, bury under Copley Sq then up through the parking garage at Back Bay. Makes waaaaay more sense to just walk on the sidewalk. Plus a Green/Orange transfer is going to be so lightly used anyway given how close the Green and Orange Lines run together anyway.
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

vanshnookenraggen said:
Everything the state has proposed and built for transit to the SBW is a gimmicky, crippled-from-the-start stop-gap for real transit improvements.
Click to expand...
As far as I can tell it's that people in the state government recognize there's a transit problem, but have no political will to push for actual solutions because they would be too expensive. So whatever plan they can finagle out of the existing infrastructure gets proposed, no matter how roundabout.
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

vanshnookenraggen said:
Here is a quick map I threw together showing the Silver Line, the new DMU service, and possible Red or Green Line extensions (not including the original Red Line extension to Logan proposed at the same time as the Silver Line)

http://goo.gl/maps/qywFN (you may have to turn the transit map option On)

Extending the Green Line will do everything they want AND be a boon to Chinatown which is, as we know, quickly filling up with apartments. If this was Europe it would have already been built.
Click to expand...

That Essex Street Green routing is probably never going to happen with all the "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns" lurking beneath Chinatown. The cheapest and easiest build to get Green from South Station to Boylston is this:

kNQNRak.png


Which isn't as visually pleasing, but the one that actually works, and also gets another routing from Central Subway to Back Bay/Huntington Ave, South Station to Huntington Ave subway as well. Also sets up a Central Subway-Dudley line.
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

I'm not saying it's cheap but it is the most obvious route and the one that offers the most bang for the buck. Besides the tunnel itself will have to run pretty deep which should avoid messing with a lot of the ancient infrastructure.

The point is that the state seems take the cheap road with transit to SBW over and over again when it would have just been cheaper to do it right the first time.
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

How would the Green Line tunnel from Tremont St. to South Station work? (the non-Essex St. alternative proposal above)
It would have to go under the Orange Line tunnel and the Mass Pike, then go underneath all of the auto tunnels leading from the Pike to the Ted Williams, and than would have to come up to the same level as the Silver Line tunnel under Atlantic Ave. But the Silver Line tunnel is built on top of the northbound artery auto tunnel at the point, and the Green Line tunnel would have to be coming up from underneath the auto tunnel. All of this new tunneling would be in the area where they had to freeze the soil to "shove" the auto tunnels under the existing tracks heading into South Station. The Green Line would be "shoved" underneath all of that and would still have to rise to the Silver Line tunnel level?
 
Last edited:
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

BussesAin'tTrains said:
That's probably how BCEC is going to market it if it happens. Not 10 minutes though. Probably 15.

I don't this this will have a connection to the World Trade stop. I mean they could fare charge it that way, but you'd still have to walk the block or two to get between them. Not a huge deal, but not a direct connection.
Click to expand...

I had been hoping that they'd actually put the stop across from the BCEC, in the location shown in this picture with the Globe story. That'd make it easy for there to be a Silver connection via a pedestrian bridge. But then I realized that it'd have to cross traffic, so I guess that's not going to happen.

rail1.jpg
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

vanshnookenraggen said:
Plus a Green/Orange transfer is going to be so lightly used anyway given how close the Green and Orange Lines run together anyway.
Click to expand...

It's actually used quite a bit already, by people who live in JP and beyond, but work in Kenmore/BU/Cambridgeport. That said, the three block above ground walk is just fine.
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

So, this rail line is not in use at all, right? This means that there will now be trains running parallel to the Haul Road (and B Street), right?

Do these trains make "choo-choo" sounds?

Also a serious question: Is there any reason that the state would stop the train at the Convention Center? It's because they want to have only one station at first (or, ever), yes?

If you end it at the Convention Center, why not have it stop in front of the Convention Center instead of beside it? Put it in front, add an elevator/stairs up to "World Trade Center Ave" and a person can go from Back Bay / South End Station to Seaport District and transfer to the Silver Line bus as easily as Orange Line to South Station to Silver Line.
 
Re: Track 61 (Seaport - Back Bay DMU)

JohnAKeith said:
So, this rail line is not in use at all, right?
Click to expand...

It's not in use at all. Though it's in excellent shape. I looked at a soil remediation job in South Boston and the tracks ran right through the property to be remediated. The owner (of the land, not the tracks) wanted us to dig out the dirt right underneath the tracks. I told him we couldn't that - the tracks weren't abandoned (and even if they were abandoned we'd need the ROW owners approval). He told me they were abandoned and pointed to a jersey barrier he'd put across the tracks as proof. He also said he didn't even know who owned the ROW. Needless to say we didn't bid the job.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top