Abandoned platform in Waltham

sery2831 wrote:Peak trains have the control car open... All off peak trains the control cars cannot be used.

Why not?

Talk about a waste of fuel and car-mileage costs...

butts260 wrote:I was born in Waltham, on Lyman St., in 1923, and I distinctly remember the Rt 20 bridge - bright green then - well before my family moved to NYC, in the spring of 1936. I think I remember the grade crossing before the bridge, so I'd guess it went up between 1929 and 1935.

The bridge was built in 1936.

boblothrope wrote:

sery2831 wrote:Peak trains have the control car open... All off peak trains the control cars cannot be used.

Why not?

Talk about a waste of fuel and car-mileage costs...

There are several reasons. One is post 9/11 rules. There is no restricted access to the locomotive cab(this is a topic we will NOT discuss in the forum as it's a Federal Law and it's reasoning is out of our control). Waste of mileage? How do you propose a train operates without one? Train sets are fixed(if you add remove cars you need a full mechanical force to retest the brakes). Cars are opened to the level of ridership at off peak times, crew staff size also plays into how many cars are open as well. The current operation practice of the MBTA is to use the cars directly behind the locomotive due to the location of the ADA platforms. There is a discussion in this forum about this if you would like to continue this topic.

Briefly off topic, back when the Central Mass still had commuter rail (till '71) and going even further back to the Bemis branch (20's and before) there must have been at least 6 or 7 stations/stops in Waltham.

Thanks for the info, everyone! What I thought was a simple question affording maybe a simple answer (or none at all) brought out way more than I ever expected...this place is the best!

NRGeep wrote:Briefly off topic, back when the Central Mass still had commuter rail (till '71) and going even further back to the Bemis branch (20's and before) there must have been at least 6 or 7 stations/stops in Waltham.

On the Central Massachusetts line, there were Waltham and Waltham Highlands. On the Watertown branch, there were Chemistry and Bleachery. And on the main line, there were Stony Brook and Riverview, and Beaver Brook and Clematis Brook.

This map shows them all.

Waltham Highlands station is still standing.

The two wooden trestles over the Charles for the Watertown Branch still stand, as does a metal trestle that carried the Central Mass over Linden Street.

So combined with the still-in-use Waltham and Roberts, there were at one point ten train stops in Waltham city lines.

I removed the last three posts in this topic, because two people could not be especially civil to each other.

If your topic branches off, ask your frum mod to open a new topic. He can do that.

We now return you to the topic at hand.

The bridge says something like 1932 or 1933 on it.