A kind of "reverse saber rattling?" re. Cape Cod

MickD wrote:Well..I saw that wnen it was first put up..
Interesting that it only asks the opinions
of those that only visit and not residents..

Well, yes, but by and large those are the ones that make up the bulk of the traffic,... especially in summer,

When The T is cutting back service like it did yesterday,survey or not,
this is still a very long shot in the dark

I have not watched the video referred to in the following except of an e-mail I
received today....

Just an FYI folks...

"the race for state representative thinks it's a great idea to pave over the Cape Cod Central Railroad train tracks
in order to turn them into a bike pathway. (As an aside, he worked for nearly twenty years as a salesman
for a paving contractor.)

It's one thing to take an abandoned stretch of track with no economic future and convert it to
a biking or walking path; quite another to propose kicking two businesses off of the tracks in a government takeover.
Besides, the county has mapped out a route that connects all of Cape Cod with a bike pathway without
resorting to using the railroad bed.

I'm hoping you might bring this to the attention of your friends who treasure an active railroad and would not want to see the West Barnstable Train Station relegated to the role of bicyclist stopover.

Here is the video in which Ellis makes this proposal. This topic is at the 23-minute mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNKRpvfg ... ata_player

If the track is NOT state-owned and NOT abandoned or inactive, he has NO chance. The RR will fight him.
If the line is state owned and NOT abandoned as only a slightly higher chance, but the RR can still fight and the State will not abandon an active track generating tax $$ in favor of a trail.
If the line is state owned and either OOS or abandoned it's doomed.

Cosmo wrote:If the track is NOT state-owned and NOT abandoned or inactive, he has NO chance. The RR will fight him.
If the line is state owned and NOT abandoned as only a slightly higher chance, but the RR can still fight and the State will not abandon an active track generating tax $$ in favor of a trail.
If the line is state owned and either OOS or abandoned it's doomed.

It's state-owned, not abandoned, and its primary customer is a gov't-owned waste transfer station under long-term contract to the RR.

He's gonna get fought on this from public & private interests. Put it this way: does he have a chance at getting enough votes to shove something down the Cape's throat when closing the Yarmouth waste transfer puts tons more garbage trucks on their clogged roads and costs the towns more in labor and vehicle costs?

It's one thing to say something stupid in front of a small crowd at some pomp-and-circumstance speech. It's another to get signoff on something that's going to negatively impact town budgets...in a lot of different towns with their own political fiefdoms. Either he'll walk this bit of thinking out loud back in no time, or he's in over his head (if this actually is a cause he's willing to fight for).

the ending of rail haul to semass will improve the towns spending on waste disposal. as i argued before any of this was launched, short mileage rail is too expensive. the use of a car tipper reflects the simpistic thinking of the original railroad folk. the plethora of unused box cars awash in the nruc debacle clouded thinking. now that buy-in pricing is over, towns will find it less expensive to drive their collection vehicles to semass and by-pass the $10/ton surcharge for using the transfer station. in fact, the bourne landfill may give semass indigestion since it's costs are far less than semass so it can play a daily tipping fee game. the railcars carry about 50 tons. semass pays about $5/ton. $250/car, the tipper takes 30 minutes/car and semass has to move the waste? the towns collection vehicles can tip directly on the floor. also the state dot has an incredible rail maintenance charge. it was a nice illusion to use rail . facts are stubborn things. ken patrick

You know, it is damn hard to find Peeps in stores in the middle of August. Just saying.

KEN PATRICK wrote:the ending of rail haul to semass will improve the towns spending on waste disposal. as i argued before any of this was launched, short mileage rail is too expensive. the use of a car tipper reflects the simpistic thinking of the original railroad folk. the plethora of unused box cars awash in the nruc debacle clouded thinking. now that buy-in pricing is over, towns will find it less expensive to drive their collection vehicles to semass and by-pass the $10/ton surcharge for using the transfer station. in fact, the bourne landfill may give semass indigestion since it's costs are far less than semass so it can play a daily tipping fee game. the railcars carry about 50 tons. semass pays about $5/ton. $250/car, the tipper takes 30 minutes/car and semass has to move the waste? the towns collection vehicles can tip directly on the floor. also the state dot has an incredible rail maintenance charge. it was a nice illusion to use rail . facts are stubborn things. ken patrick

"the ending of rail haul to semass will improve the towns spending on waste disposal."
Really?
" facts are stubborn things."
Hasn't stopped you yet.

Ever look into spell-check? Try grammar-check next. Your punctuation needs work.

Removal of the rail line on the Cape would also preclude any kind of passenger/commuter service returning, something that Mr. Ellis did not mention. Also the fact that the bike path would not generate revenue at all was also not mentioned. (Yet the rail line from the Wasted Falmouth station to north Falmouth was 'stolen' from potential rail use with the connivance of the state and local officials, although at least this portion is 'railbanked', which means, at least in theory it could be reconverted back to rail use.)

I think the critical step is for people to challenge Mr. Ellis, as per experience re. the Falmouth line, stupidity has a way of winning as very few people raised their voices.

atlantis wrote:Removal of the rail line on the Cape would also preclude any kind of passenger/commuter service returning, something that Mr. Ellis did not mention. Also the fact that the bike path would not generate revenue at all was also not mentioned. (Yet the rail line from the Wasted Falmouth station to north Falmouth was 'stolen' from potential rail use with the connivance of the state and local officials, although at least this portion is 'railbanked', which means, at least in theory it could be reconverted back to rail use.)

I think the critical step is for people to challenge Mr. Ellis, as per experience re. the Falmouth line, stupidity has a way of winning as very few people raised their voices.

He should also maybe familiarize himself with interstate commerce, and the federal agencies that regulate it with railroads. I mean, c'mon, if deep-sixing an active rail line (and consequently putting an active carrier out of business) were as simple as legislative fiat from one guy ramming through a bill there would be no railroads still running in this country. Or airports. Or half the highways. Or heavy industry whatsoever. Or a whole bunch of other civil engineering and essential services. And everybody would have all the trails they could handle, for whatever good that does with suburban property values collapsing from there being no infrastructure or services.

Methinks he did not think this cunning plan through much.

You gotta love it when Robbie Heigh doesn't ask the challenging questions such as "what about future commuter/passenger rail,"etc. Also when Mr. Ellis brought up the point that he was looking at this in the 1980's, Ms. Heigh didn't challenge him about the existing seasonal rail service at the time.
Just the classic "OOOOOOOH , AAAAAHHHH" when Mr. Ellis proposed this bike path plan. Any rail advocate promoting rail service would certainly be challenged on the merits of his/her proposal, as they should be. But bring up a bike path replacing a rail line, the classic "OOOHING and AAAHING" comes to play. Certainly Ms Heigh must remember that particular rail service, unless she was not on the Cape at the time. But it's a typical response from a largely apathetic populace, the same that helped destroy other rail corridors on the Cape. The ones who support rail must come out swinging and not give into the "OOOOHING and AAAHING" that many journalists give into today re. Cape rail. Also, IMHO, it's important for Cape Cod Central and Mass Coastal to fight for expansion of their respective businesses in order to keep the rail lines active.

Ken Patrick- As a Mass Coastal employee, I find your BS really obnoxious. You really gotta get your facts (and possibly head) checked out.

bay colony 1706. i go way back on this. i argued against the nruc boxcars/tipper because i knew you couldn't make money regardless of volumes. my equipment gave semass a shot at using their buffalo burn for over permit tonnages. i worked several proposals to that effect. the original investors opined that braintree could be ral served with the boxcars. too many railroads involved to compete with trucks and too much infrastructure investment. i revisited this recently when covanta will spend $7mil to improve the brantree ops. i thought they could convert that money into track. semass would pay $7/ton or about $350/car. the 4 railroads needed $16/ton. also the car tipper remains a cost monster. now that the towns buy-in pricing has expired, i predict a move to bourne and direct to semass. for 400 tpd why go thru the expense of dumping into a walking floor(Mashpee) then tipping at otis, then pushing into boxcars, then spotting one boxcar at a time to spend 40 minutes tipping 50 tons ( 2 trailers) then wheeloading to the tipping floor. for what? 20 road miles? a flawed concept from the start. ken patrick

i predict a move to bourne

Shame on any Cape town that would pick the option of using the Bourne landfill. Any Cape official that would choose to bury trash on top of the Cape's only aquifer clearly only cares about today's buck, not the Cape's environment or future costs for cleanup and their community's water.

Same goes on using trucks to transport trash over the Cape's two overused canal highway bridges. We'll see if the almighty dollar triumphs over care of the Cape community regarding transport.

I'd also point that the Cape is woefully underequipped for any sort of
mass evacuation should it be necessary. Granted ,MC/CCC doesn't
currently possess what that would involve but wthe rail access does
offer another option to be considered.