You've totally lost me here. MBCR has zero, zilch to do with the MBTA's charter or where they're allowed to run. They are simply an operating subcontractor providing commuter rail operations management. Every service agreement between a district town, out-of-district RTA, or other state is between those parties and the T. From 1964 on when the commuter rail started being subsidized, the T was the only agency the municipalities ever interfaced with. Even with the private RR's still owning and operating the lines under subsidy for the first 10 years, even with MBCR now the third operator since the full public ownership era began in 1976, even with them having the future option to go all in-house. It's Purple Line all the same as far as the public is concerned. The only time MBCR the company ever interfaces directly with the public is the aforementioned complaint line. Even the RR employees themselves are insulated from their "employer" MBCR by having union contracts seamlessly transferable from one company to the next, or in-house if it ever goes that way. Except for who their managers are, MBCR is just the name at the top of the pay stub. Just as Amtrak was the name at the top of the stub 9 years ago for all those workers doing the same jobs with the same T-owned equipment.
And I don't know what the On-Time Service guarantee has to do here either. That's strictly a clause specific to this subcontractor agreement to compel the operator to stick to a realistic schedule. If it can't, then it's on the operator to either modify its schedules to something it
can make, which is where MBCR has been falling apart on the job. Or the operator has to take the agency to task to maintain the equipment that's failing the schedules...which is where both MBCR and the T are falling apart, and where the T-Amtrak working relationship fell apart at the end of the last contract. That's an administrative efficiency hurdle if they're getting tripped up on it, not a structural or "constitutional" hurdle. They can make their operator problems go away whenever they're motivated to hold MBCR to the fire, replace MBCR with somebody better, or do away with subcontracting altogether. Or...by making the On-Time Service guarantee itself go away in the next contract
Who owns and dispatches what track doesn't have anything to do with who operates where. Each stretch of track and who runs on it is controlled by individual deals. Such as:
-- The T owns the title deed on the NEC to the state line, but Amtrak has controlled all dispatching and all track work on it since its inception 40 years ago. They can't leave South Station anywhere except for Fairmount and the Old Colony Lines without asking the Amtrak dispatcher for permission. They also can't make a single modification to anything on the Providence Line except the stations without Amtrak's permission. But we can thank the "foreign" control for pushing through the electrification, 150 MPH speeds, and slew of other improvements the T would've never been able to spearhead. We'll see the fruits of that once these new locomotives and coaches on-order get to haul the first 90 MPH Providence Line trains.
-- They CAN, however, legally operate the Purple Line as far south as New London, CT without negotiating any new rights deals with Amtrak on
Amtrak-owned track in RI and CT. Thanks to a short-lived super-extended Boston-New London commuter train the New Haven RR ran 45 years ago which had perpetual rights conferred to the T when it bought the Providence Line. Hence, Purple Line trains to Wickford Jct. now and possibly Providence-Westerly entirely outside of MA borders later with no eyebrows raised. If RIDOT's paying for 100% of the out-of-district running, they're happy as clams to do it.
-- The T has owned the Worcester Line out to Framingham since the late-60's, but it took buying out the whole CSX works in Eastern MA to get their schedule slots on it...starting later this year when it's finally official. All the years in the 70's and 80's when service was cut back to just Framingham, and they still couldn't slot their own trains on their own track because Penn Central/Conrail had ironclad traffic priority to Beacon Park. They got the raw end of this one as much as they got a sweet deal with Amtrak on the NEC.
-- They still run on CSX-owned track to get to Forge Park from Franklin, but that deal gave the T 100% control of dispatching. And perpetual passenger rights to Milford without need for prior CSX permission.
-- They cut deals with Pan Am last year for perpetual passenger and dispatching rights on Pan Am-owned freight track for the Fitchburg-Wachusett and Haverhill-Plaistow extensions, plus future considerations Lowell-Concord and Worcester-Ayer. And, yes, this means the T has cleverly cornered the market on who can operate NH's own in-state service. If NHDOT wanted to go it alone they'd have to cut their own separate rights agreement with Pan Am, but as long as it's in Purple Line livery they can just reimburse the T to ping a train back and forth between Concord and Nashua to their heart's content.
-- By same token, every time somebody in the Patrick Admin. intermittently blurts out something in an election year about future commuter rail to Springfield...rest assured they are either lying or don't know what the hell they're talking about. Nowhere in any fine print does the T have operating rights west of Worcester Union Station. Only Amtrak. They want it...they're gonna have to buy out the whole CSX Western MA works at a premium to get it. You'll sooner see a conga line of Regionals go to Springfield on quasi-commuter headways than you'll ever see a Purple Line train venture west of I-290.
The transit region at-large is what their wheeling and dealing makes it. And past dealing has already stretched it to pretty much these same "Superstate" boundaries. What they want to operate and how competently they want to operate it are admin and planning decisions. What they're
allowed to operate is already structurally protected.
