Silver Line to Chelsea

[FK4]

Wow, fantastic progress on the SLX.

seriously - its like the project that you had no idea is actually racing ahead

 

[underground]

I hope this project works out and people say, "oh wait, if we do this brt stuff right, it's actually sort of nice."

 

[The EGE]

The problem is that this was the only place in Boston that's both reasonably easy to do silver-standard BRT (this isn't gold-standard and doesn't need to be) and actually useful to do so. And that's only because Chelsea is a transit-starved area due to geography and a century of politics.

The corridors where BRT or street-running LRT would be immensely valuable - Washington Street, Blue Hill Ave, Mass Ave, Western / Arsenal, etc - lack of political will for real improvements that require removing parking, dedicated lanes, and installing signal priority; and in many cases other issues like lack of street width, means that any "BRT" will be no better than the current Washington Street service.

 

[BostonUrbEx]

Is there any rule -- NORAC or CFR -- which actually bans the use of railroad signals being shared with vehicular traffic signal cycles? It's rather hard to dig up. I figure if the host railroad is willing to do it, then why can't it be done?

And if its a matter of track designation, then plop a station sign 100 ft west of Mass Ave and 100 ft east of Broadway. Make that other-than-main-track between the station signs and add traffic signals. Throw in some special instructions in the employee timetable if you have to. I'm not convinced there's no easy way around this. Seems to big of a deal over a simple issue.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Is there any rule -- NORAC or CFR -- which actually bans the use of railroad signals being shared with vehicular traffic signal cycles? It's rather hard to dig up. I figure if the host railroad is willing to do it, then why can't it be done?

And if its a matter of track designation, then plop a station sign 100 ft west of Mass Ave and 100 ft east of Broadway. Make that other-than-main-track between the station signs and add traffic signals. Throw in some special instructions in the employee timetable if you have to. I'm not convinced there's no easy way around this. Seems to big of a deal over a simple issue.

FRA's website was designed with search functionally straight out of a civil servant IT guy employed during Clinton's second term. For the most part Wikipedia and other Google-able sources list the essentials if you don't feel like pulling your hair out searching through 50 pages of poorly-sorted public records.

FRA regs, the NORAC et al. train crew rulebooks, and the MUTCD road design manual (which is much easier to search) all converge over crossings.


The rules are:

-- [FRA rule] Active crossing protection must be triggered a minimum of 30 seconds before a hypothetical train hits the crossing while running at max authorized speed (MAS) for the segment of track surrounding the crossing. It's not a variable trigger at different speeds because it's based on MAS, therefore you get the same full-speed timings for a nonstop train even if 100% of the trains are slowing into a station stop at the crossings.

For example, with the Fitchburg Line upgrades the MAS end-to-end was changed (with only a couple small locally-restricted exceptions) from 59 MPH to 79 MPH, so every single grade crossing had to be re-timed the whole distance from Somerville to the last outbound crossing in Shirley. Ditto the Knowledge Corridor for the Vermonter when that went to 79 MPH. Ditto the Cape Flyer to a MAS of 59 MPH on all the upgraded mainland track, and on parts on the Cape where speeds didn't increase nearly that big but did outstrip the old gate timings (in which case they got re-done for future 59 MPH and just run gates-down a little long today). It's not particularly difficult to re-time a crossing, but it is totally a hard-wired thing with fixed trackside position. This isn't one of those things like PTC where you can have variable spacing auto-adjusted by software. Nothing has to be more fail-safe than crossing protection, so their attitude (which has some merit) is: don't ask us for special waivers and Jetsons-shit software, because paying the going rate to grade separate is the fail-safest of all.

'Nimble' accel/decel on a particular vehicle makes no difference, just like making a station stop makes no difference. Because the timing is fully equipment-neutral and neutral to actual vs. max speed, the only thing that matters for gate timing is distance to the crossing vs. MAS for an any-vehicle. So, a hi-rail pickup truck lollygagging past the Miner Ln. crossing on the NEC in Waterford, CT while doing a routine track inspection between Amtrak slots would trigger the gates as far ahead of the crossing as an Acela or Regional or Shore Line East train doing the 90 MPH passenger MAS in that area, or a P&W freight doing the 80 MPH freight MAS in that area. No exceptions; it's all distance-based, zero vehicle-based.


-- [FRA rule] Gates must be triggered by a track circuit when available. So the way that would work is that hypothetical 30-seconds distance at MAS out the train's (or hi-rail truck's) wheels take an electric pulse through one of the running rails and completes the 'circuit' through the steel wheel to the other running rail. Detector triggers the gates upon completion of the circuit. Gates stay down until the train clears the other side of the crossing, then takes the pulse from the track circuit situated on that other side of the crossing to complete the circuit that switches the crossing protection off. The on/off circuits can detect which direction the train is moving by which running rail is making the circuit, so that's how the gates can go "off" the second the train clears in any given direction and not have to wait a matching "30 seconds out" in any given trailing direction.

Variances: when track circuits aren't available (like on a crap freight branchline) they still use crude old mechanical switches to turn the crossing on or off. The line also doesn't have to be signaled at all to have a track circuit. Insulated rail joints mean the circuit can be made localized to whatever lone stick of rail is 30 seconds out, and wired into the crossing power supply box hooked up to the nearest roadway telephone pole. With limited battery backup if there's a power outage on the local grid. All fully isolated, RR doesn't have central control or monitoring. Sometimes the RR doesn't install them at all and it's just the DOT requesting phoning in permission from the line owner to install it themselves. As is common practice, the crossing protection can trigger a nearby traffic light for traffic management while the train is passing and queue management after it's passed. It's unidirectional, though...train gets 100% of the right of way and traffic lights are reactive to the train but not vice versa.

Usually when you have a crossing malfunction where the gates get stuck, a track circuit malfunction is to blame. Like, for example, the "off" circuit didn't get detected properly so it just stays in the "on" position forever until somebody does a manual reset. Or there's a timeout phase if they're in the "on" position much too long for there to plausibly still be a train nearby. Or the train has completely stopped short of the crossing. e.g. It's a work train that stopped to do some adjacent track work...or there's a freight turning out onto an adjacent siding after triggering the protection, but it'll never actually reach the crossing. And there are some limited things they can do around station stops to keep the gates from staying down during a full station dwell. There's a couple such installations on the T, and plenty more that badly need it. But leeway is limited, and likewise distance + MAS vs. not moving at all for X duration related...not vehicle-related and not optimization-related for the very existence of station stops with some trains.


^^The setup of all of this around distance to the crossing vs. MAS is why it makes zero difference what vehicle you're running or how nimble it accelerates/decelerates. It's fixed, hard-wired track hardware that doesn't care what the vehicle is, and by-design doesn't make the slightest attempt to care. The only thing it makes the slightest attempt to care about is which direction the train is moving for the on/off triggers. Mainly because it's easy and fail-safe to detect direction (no additional complexity, impossible to fake direction from the track circuit's perspective).

I repeated it in every other thread...it don't mean shit what an xMU is technologically capable of doing vs. a big dumb freight train or push-pull when crossing protection is (intentionally) made blind to vehicle type. And hypothetical future awesome-waivers for running awesome-DMU's don't change anything with the trackside hardware. You either spend 2x the cost for 2x the crossing hardware at every crossing like the RiverLINE and other time-separated lines, or give up most of the flexibility. Because this is a fixed hardware thing, not a bureaucracy thing or a software thing. You certainly can't switch on-the-fly between 2 sets of completely separate gate-timing hardware installs at anything resembling fast. The self-diagnostic testing for each switchover would eat up several minutes just checking itself for fail-safety. Like doing a 'cold reboot' of the entire Grand Junction every time a conventional train and DMU are in adjacent slots. That's not quick or nimble. And if something faults on self-check it's a schedule delay while Central Ops checks it out. Several times a day if one crossing tends to fault a lot more than the others (winter weather?).


-- [NORAC, etc. rules] Horn + bell sequence must be sounded between 15 and 20 seconds, and no less than 15 seconds, before passing through the crossing. And continue both until the train has entirely occupied the crossing (i.e. additional horn + bell sequences if the train's moving slower than track speed). If it's a quiet zone, then there's no horn but still mandatory bells. And there's also the alternating flashing ditch lights rule, although that starts much further out. This all is how the crew rulebook(s) account for the varying speeds their varying rail vehicles would travel through the crossing; repeat the warning sound sequences for however many times it takes to get there if they're running slow.

The rulebooks also have lots of general-purpose stuff about crossing safety. Including the rules about stop-and-protect and flagging unprotected public crossings that have no warning devices except for a crossbucks sign. And other stuff in their route qualifications about memorizing what crossings are public (always stop-and-protect) vs. private crossings (never stop-and-protect) vs. high-traffic private crossings (waiverable into stop-and-protect rules). And on protected crossings they've got all sorts of fallback rules for dealing with malfunctioning crossing protection.

However, it's not the train crew's responsibility to watch the gates go down. They can't see the flashers and gates from their line of sight, so that's the autos' responsibility to look both ways, not blare their music so loud they can't hear the horn/bells, and obey the "No Train Horn" warning sign at quiet crossings. 30 seconds out at MAS usually isn't enough to completely stop a long train to begin with after throwing it into emergency. And it is possible for obstruction detection sensors to make the signal system automatically send the train into emergency; this is how the NEC's crossings are set up. But the rulebook is equally clear on what's totally outside the train crew's control and the car's/biker's/pedestrian's fault.



-- [MUTCD rules] Road warning signage, safe road sightline regs, traffic densities where active protection strongly recommended (usually non-binding for upgrades, but new construction has to follow 100% of the rules). And the stuff that's the driver's fault for not obeying.

MUTCD at least has a slick website for pulling all this stuff up quickly and easily. And they have lots of pictoral illustrations of the rules that laypeople can understand, unlike the gobbledygook walls of text the FRA has. If you can locate it at all on their horrible website.






Light rail is completely different. And so is time separation when the line is exempt from FRA rules and can impose alternate gate timings when it's on exempt hours (granted: no interconnections to 'on-duty' FRA tracks allowed, so that's the killer for any RiverLINE-type applications in New England). All you have to worry about with light rail are the NTSB's much looser "don't be fucking idiots risking safety and you can do what you want" regs and whatever the MUTCD specs for road-related sharing. BRT and busways tilting much more exclusively to the MUTCD, of course.

 

[BostonUrbEx]

-- [FRA rule] Active crossing protection must be triggered a minimum of 30 seconds before a hypothetical train hits the crossing while running at max authorized speed (MAS) for the segment of track surrounding the crossing. It's not a variable trigger at different speeds because it's based on MAS, therefore you get the same full-speed timings for a nonstop train even if 100% of the trains are slowing into a station stop at the crossings.

...

'Nimble' accel/decel on a particular vehicle makes no difference, just like making a station stop makes no difference. Because the timing is fully equipment-neutral and neutral to actual vs. max speed, the only thing that matters for gate timing is distance to the crossing vs. MAS for an any-vehicle. So, a hi-rail pickup truck lollygagging past the Miner Ln. crossing on the NEC in Waterford, CT while doing a routine track inspection between Amtrak slots would trigger the gates as far ahead of the crossing as an Acela or Regional or Shore Line East train doing the 90 MPH passenger MAS in that area, or a P&W freight doing the 80 MPH freight MAS in that area. No exceptions; it's all distance-based, zero vehicle-based.

This doesn't make sense. It seems to imply an absolute circuit is the only method possible. Predictor Motion Sensing (PMS) crossings are widely popular these days and can activate a crossing based on when a train is actually 20-30 seconds out. That way if a train is coming toward a crossing at half the maximum speed, it would be activate for twice the warranted time. Trains coming to a nice stop before the crossing may not even trip the gates at all, while trains coming in hot may activate the gates but the gates will come up if the train comes to a full stop before the crossing.

Also, interlockings can be used to isolate crossings from trains which may be coming in for a hot stop. I can request a signal for the Downeaster in Freeport, but it will not come in unless a) I override it (which I only do for freights and deadhead moves) or b) the crew enters a DTMF code which triggers the crossing and once activated for 20 seconds a permissive signal will come in.

MAS might be required when setting up circuits, but not everything within MAS range/the circuit is going to trip a crossing.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

This doesn't make sense. It seems to imply an absolute circuit is the only method possible. Predictor Motion Sensing (PMS) crossings are widely popular these days and can activate a crossing based on when a train is actually 20-30 seconds out. That way if a train is coming toward a crossing at half the maximum speed, it would be activate for twice the warranted time. Trains coming to a nice stop before the crossing may not even trip the gates at all, while trains coming in hot may activate the gates but the gates will come up if the train comes to a full stop before the crossing.

Also, interlockings can be used to isolate crossings from trains which may be coming in for a hot stop. I can request a signal for the Downeaster in Freeport, but it will not come in unless a) I override it (which I only do for freights and deadhead moves) or b) the crew enters a DTMF code which triggers the crossing and once activated for 20 seconds a permissive signal will come in.

MAS might be required when setting up circuits, but not everything within MAS range/the circuit is going to trip a crossing.

It doesn't have to make perfect sense vs. available technology. That's the letter of the regs. The only point that matters is that the FRA has not made a formal statement on taking up a motion to consider a regulatory change to allow computer-brain technology that differentiates vehicle type and auto-adjusts for vehicle type. That's still verboten, so it's still a brute-force application with no probably regulatory changes on the horizon.

They can use additional prediction methods in limited cases like station stops abutting a crossing. That has long been a real thing. Additional track circuits at ever-closer spacing to the crossing can estimate approximate speed of the train. Train slowing to station stop will obviously trigger each ever-smaller circuit block more slowly than a train running express, until it's impossible to re-accelerate in time for the crossing and the crossing protection can make a completely fail-safe decision: this train is guaranteed to be stopping while that train is speeding through. It's still speed vs. distance based, still 'dumb' technology, and still makes no distinction between type of rail vehicle. But it is fully consistent with the regs, consistent with a track circuit baseline, and does a somewhat effective job at not over-fouling the roads with too much gate time around station stops. More of those installations would really help, since crossings like Elm & Moody in Waltham and the West Medford pair controlled by an onsite human crossing tender haven't even had that basic level of track circuit nuance installed.


But everything that could happen Jetsons-shit technologically is irrelevant and pure individual speculation until the FRA files an official motion to consider, like it did with the crashworthiness regs rewrite that's pending. All the studies in the world do not a motion-to-consider make. And that's been the biggest lesson of the last 3+ decades of passenger rail revival. Every study, prediction, or exercise in wishful thinking that things are about to change because the technology has changed has been proven wrong because no motion-to-consider has ever materialized. And no amount of reading tea leaves under an electron microscope gives a new round of wishful thinking any real-world momentum when this is how the FRA operates.

Now...the defense they can present for not considering a change is that track circuits vs. MAS have met every standard of fail-safety around a crossing while computer-prediction sensors or motion sensors have not. Those are used on things like the NEC crossings for early detection of crossing obstructions, but that's an additional layer on top of the track circuits. The baseline is still the same old regs, where the only screw-up possible is the engineer exceeding MAS (but PTC closes that loophole for good). There are, especially with optical sensors, unfortunately scenarios where various types of sensor could be obstructed by natural or nefarious causes and not see the train in time. Some joker with a paintball gun can disable a motion sensor. It's physically impossible to disable a track circuit from the outside without physically destroying a rail joint by opening up a gap in the circuit or frying the feeder electronics. But on a signaled line with continuous track circuits that will induce a signal fault similar to a broken rail instantly sending the wayside or cab signals into maximum restriction, and triggering a fault alarm on dispatch's console. Fail-safe. FRA isn't, for various reasons, comfortable that smart sensors can be as fail-safe as the 'dumb' equipment auto-faulting.

I'm not saying it isn't a stubborn and unnecessarily cautious defense. That can and has been debated for decades. But it is a defense, and 3 decades of history records that all the crossing protection technological advancements in the world have not compelled the FRA to motion for a regulatory change. So it's not a realistic hope that anything is going to change with more technological innovation, because clearly technological innovation is not swaying them one bit.


Time-separated operations...sure, you can install trolley signals and rig up the crossings to do exactly what Green Line signal priority on the B/C/E should be doing with the traffic lights. But that's only valid under the regs in a time-separation scenario. Mixed-traffic defaults to the most cautious baseline, and if the FRA ain't motioning for a change consideration there is no change forthcoming nor any skids being greased to make that forthcoming. Don't have to like that. But there's also no loss of rail network redundancy if Boston takes the Grand Junction off the FRA network or takes empty track berths elsewhere for another mode. We aren't stuck if there's no Indigo Ring, so the notion that there has to be a relaxing or waiver of the RR crossing rules to have a transit solution on the Ring corridor is also bunk. Building a BRT or LRT Ring is a choice they can make any time they want to. And the feds can and will point that out on any application for a waiver.

Nothing's stopping the T either from whacking all of the Chelsea crossings except un-eliminable and least-concern 6th/Arlington. 3rd Ave. crossing is outright closeable at $0, except that they seem to be needlessly scared of pissing off Peter Pan by taking away the shortcut from their bus storage yard. Then the 4 other road bridges--Everett, Eastern, Spruce, and 2nd--@ $20M a pop if you're taking the Eastern Ave. elimination proposal figures from the '04 North Shore Improvements Study and indexing them to inflation. All the non-Eastern Ave. ones then knock a little off the top for much less complex construction and road alterations than Eastern requires. Likewise nothing is stopping them from outright closing Binney for $0 and bridging over Cambridge and Medford at $15-20M each on the Grand Junction for small efficiency improvements. Main/Broadway and Mass Ave. have their geometric impossibilities on the RR mode that don't exist on a fully voluntary BRT/LRT conversion. But whittling it down to 3 GJ crossings and 1 Eastern Route crossing is better for gate timings on northside Indigo branches than 6 GJ crossings and 5 ER crossings all packed in much closer proximity.

Nobody's putting a gun to their heads; nobody's helpless if the feds don't giftwrap it for them with a regulatory change. They can spend far, far less than megaproject money doing it themselves. Hell, TWO $20M appropriations for just Eastern Ave. and Everett Ave. on the Eastern Route--plus the $0 closure of 3rd--is enough to solve the Chelsea speed restrictions and congestion entirely. You don't even have to do 2nd or Spruce until the real Ring comes to town. So you also have to consider who's got the burden of proof on eliminable crossings. There's a good reason why the southside has zero grade crossings inside of 128 on any passenger line. Boston & Albany and NYNH&H hunkered down and finished the last of the elimination dirty work in 10-mile radius of South Station. B&M wasn't so diligent on the northside except for a modern-era burst of 1950's Lowell Line eliminations in the Wedgemere-Wilmington stretch. Nothing federal says the T can't do the same. Or has its hands tied blowing insane money on Greenbush-reactivation crossing eliminations instead of knocking off a few far higher-traffic northside cheapies. It's a choice, not learned helplessness crying for a federal bailout.

 

[cybah]

Well time for an another update... I saw construction starting at the Market Basket shopping center, so I figured things were moving right along and it was time to take more pics sooner than later. (I had planned on late August) So I went out yesterday (8/1/15) morning to take some pics to track more of the progress.

There's work being done now behind the MassPort Garage and now at Market Basket (unlike before), much of the brush and trash has been removed along the western route (where the CR and the new busway will run co-currently). Plus they've started to really grade the main part of the busway.

If you'd like to see the previous photo set from 4/25/15 you can click here
If you'd like to see the previous photo set from 6/20/15 you can click here

And if you'd like to see the ALL of NEW photos, you can click here.

Now for the highlights:

It's official, there's a sign now stating the construction!

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Significant clearing and grading at the MassPort Garage now for the future Eastern Ave Station

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OK can anyone explain the piles and why they are covered. They are everywhere along the project now! Is it to prevent run off so they can 'save' the top soil?

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Looking up the busway toward the Bellingham Street Bridge, lots of grading now and a construction staging area.

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Looking up the busway toward Box District Station from the Bellingham Street bridge. I now think the grading is more for the construction vehicles to get in and out of the project area without using Chelsea City streets (just as new buses will!)

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More grading and drainage work in front of the MWRA building (from Library Street)

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This is where Box District Station will be. It's all been cleared now.

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Lots of cleanup still needs to be done, but you can really see where the busway will be now. A retaining wall will be built where the trash is now and the new shared use path (with it's connection to the Broadway bridge) will be built on top.

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Looking toward the Washington Ave bridge. Lots of cleaing up left to do, but coming along. The new busway will be on the left and the utility poles will be moved.

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Washington Ave bridge construction.

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Washington Ave Bridge reconstruction. The foundation for the new support! (and the old support in the foreground)

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Clearing for a future pedestrian connection that will connect Chelsea Center Station to the Washington Ave Bridge

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A better view from underneath the Washington Ave Bridge

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Future Chelsea Center Station (and current construction staging area)

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Clearing behind MGH Chelsea as seen from Spruce Street. Notice how all the trees are gone!

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Another view (from Everett Ave) of the clearing behind MGH Chelsea. (and yes they took a small section of MGH's parking lot for the busway)

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Construction at Market Basket for Mystic Mall Station.

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More construction at Market Basket. They already have the parking lot re-configured.

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I think that's it. For more pics click on the link above for the full set of photos and let me know what you think!

Next Update: Early September!

 

[The EGE]

I was out there literally a week ago and there was nothing more than stakes at Market Basket. This is moving fast.

 

[Deetroyt]

I don't suppose they're putting up poles for pantograph lines for future conversion to LRV? That way the only thing needed would be to put rails in the pavement right? I'm almost positive that isn't part of this project, but can anyone confirm?

 

[BostonUrbEx]

I don't suppose they're putting up poles for pantograph lines for future conversion to LRV? That way the only thing needed would be to put rails in the pavement right? I'm almost positive that isn't part of this project, but can anyone confirm?

Not sure where you got that idea from. No one is even talking about conversion on an official level right now, let alone funding it.

 

[underground]

I was out there literally a week ago and there was nothing more than stakes at Market Basket. This is moving fast.

I go through here on the CR daily. They've actually been going at the bridge replacement, old Chelsea Station, and chopping out brush/trees for about a month, but yes, it's CRUISING.

 

[cybah]

I go through here on the CR daily. They've actually been going at the bridge replacement, old Chelsea Station, and chopping out brush/trees for about a month, but yes, it's CRUISING.

Yep, it is. I went by Market Basket on my way from a clients office today and saw they have now ripped up all the trees on that side of the tracks (the Mall side). They may start bull dozing soon.

 

[AmericanFolkLegend]

OK can anyone explain the piles and why they are covered. They are everywhere along the project now! Is it to prevent run off so they can 'save' the top soil?

Contaminated material. Put it in piles. Sample every 500 CY or so and then wait for the test results to determine where it can be shipped offsite.

 

[BostonUrbEx]

The Resident Engineer on the project is the same one that was Resident Engineer on Callahan Tunnel.

I assume you mean the Callahan rehabilitation project? Or was the guy in his 20's when the tunnel was built and is now in his 70/80's?

 

[AmericanFolkLegend]

I assume you mean the Callahan rehabilitation project? Or was the guy in his 20's when the tunnel was built and is now in his 70/80's?

Haha! Yes, the rehab project that was completed last year.

 

[Arlington]

Where does the name "gateway" come from? Is it historical, fanciful (to sound silver-y and new), or geographic (like Hell Gate is in NYC), or political (a gateway drug or initial segment for an urban ring?).

 

[datadyne007]

I had assumed that it came from Chelsea's designation as a Gateway City



More here.

Thanks! I was wondering this too!

 

[CantabAmager]

I had assumed that it came from Chelsea's designation as a Gateway City

I would assume this is the answer, as well - MassDOT's public transit expansion project allocations are "officially" termed the 21st Century Transpo...yadda yadda, but the two subcategories are "State of Good Repair" (obvious) and the expansions are housed under the "Unlocking Economic Development" program - I'm almost certain the SL name is a tie-in with the Gateway city designation.

I'm kinda curious what the general (i.e. not the MBTA's technical designation) operative name for the route will be? Maybe they keep Gateway if Chelsea tries to co-opt it for some "Gateway to Boston"-kinda spin. SL-Chelsea works, kinda spartan, but that's a personal preference.

 

[datadyne007]

I would assume this is the answer, as well - MassDOT's public transit expansion project allocations are "officially" termed the 21st Century Transpo...yadda yadda, but the two subcategories are "State of Good Repair" (obvious) and the expansions are housed under the "Unlocking Economic Development" program - I'm almost certain the SL name is a tie-in with the Gateway city designation.

I'm kinda curious what the general (i.e. not the MBTA's technical designation) operative name for the route will be? Maybe they keep Gateway if Chelsea tries to co-opt it for some "Gateway to Boston"-kinda spin. SL-Chelsea works, kinda spartan, but that's a personal preference.

SL-Market Basket, baby.