BandA wrote:[OT] If MA can get the feds to pay for remediation of Framingham-Boston deficiencies (what is needed Worcester-Framingham?), supposedly to benefit Amtrak Inland & Lake Shore Ltd. but mostly for commuter rail, that would be awesome win-win! This would include signal system, more crossovers, freight bypass around Framingham station, full highs in Framingham and Back Bay, completion of heat-destressing, and second track through Beacon Park. (Back Bay had cement full highs for about six months, but then they said they were "temporary platforms" and ripped them out. Thanks CSX)
It's Boston-Framingham. That's still got the archaic ABS signal system with only 1 set of crossovers between the west end of Beacon Park and Framingham Jct. and a 59 MPH speed limit. Installed by Boston & Albany mid-60's when the Mass Pike Extension construction cleanroomed the ROW inside Route 128, and the absolute cheapest/most-limited/don't-give-a-crap installation they could get away with at the time. Despite several studies at improving, the T has found it too difficult to be able to install any new interlockings between Beacon Park and Framingham with how limited that 1960's setup is. And it's going to be a nightmare for the PTC mandate because it's non- cab signal and cabs can't be overlaid on it (other cabless southside lines like Franklin and Needham do at least have plausible mods for overlaying cabs + ACSES on the existing signals...not so on the inner Worcester Line). The whole works remains very brittle on OTP with any delayed train causing single-file backups, and a couple times a week an outright disaster commute when cascading delays take everything down. The Newton stretch definitely doesn't help when trains have to switch to opposite tracks to pass each other at those single-platform stations. Whiff on the timing and stuff starts backing up all around. Now that the Fitchburg Line has its brand new signal system and Class 4 speeds ending its bad old days of daily delay hell, Worcester takes the new crown as the OTP dregs of the whole system.
It's not a cheap fix to re-signal 21 miles, because it all has to be a total rip-out/rebuild with no in-place modifications possible or practical. And then 2, maybe 3 new sets of crossovers and relocations of the others. Probably on the order of $100M just for the signals, and a drawn-out construction schedule full of weekend outages. No funding allocated, no funding sources so much as whispered about so far. But it's necessary and mandatory if you want real passing opportunities and real 79 MPH MAS (certainly achievable on most of inside-Framingham). And ironclad for BOTH Inlands and dense Riverside-turning Indigo Line service (the latter needing multiple crossovers in Newton to mix/mingle with Worcester traffic, and to have any means of accessing Riverside Jct. from the outbound track). Either of those services are no-go if they don't do this, and regular old commuter rail has a finite cap on additional frequencies if they don't do this.
Outside of Framingham the signaling is fine. It's all mid-80's Conrail installation cab signals all the way out to Albany, and was easily modified at reasonable cost when the second track went back in Framingham-Worcester in the mid-90's for return of commuter rail...complete with fairly generous # of crossovers. Completion of the destressing project is the only requirement to bump the track west of Framingham Jct. to Class 4/79 MPH, so that's coming very soon. Capability's already baked into the signal layout, so Class 4 Springfield-Worcester only requires a similar rail destressing and tidy-up job. Class 5/90 MPH might be a reach for the price tag, but the Inlands will easily be doing 79 on the very straight Springfield-Palmer stretch and on most of the Worcester-Framingham stretch. Palmer-Worcester then being a grin-and-bear-it with the max the hills and curves will bear.
That's probably good enough for bona fide high-demand Inland service when you consider that the Springfield Line will be hugely faster on those 90-110 MPH stretches, and MBTA territory much better. The current LSL and pre-2004 Inland schedules aren't indicative at all of how reasonable a trip it would be Springfield-Boston at vanilla Class 4. You're still talking a stratospheric improvement over MBTA territory and CSX freight priority on the single-track stretches, with massive savings already banked before the trains even hit Springfield. I doubt they even worry much about shooting for Class 5 if that's going to increase the cost much. Bread-and-butter schedule works and generates the demand just fine without stretching their funding thin beyond Class 4, and that's always an upgrade you can easily revisit later. They aren't technologically pinned in to only one shot at doing a track class uprate within cost. If the signaling infrastructure is up-to-snuff (and it largely is west of Framingham) that's something they can easily go back and do when demand crests enough to merit it.
Other stuff like the stations, while important (esp. getting the Newton trio accessible to both tracks), isn't necessarily going to hold up debut of the Inlands. Framingham is fully ADA-accessible, so while desirable to make it a full-high with freight passer behind the station that's not the first place the state would choose to ration its money unless Amtrak wanted to float that cost. The other non-ADA stops are all strictly commuter rail's concern and wouldn't hold up any Inlands. The only required station build for the Inlands, per the early-preview study recs, is a second platform at Worcester Union Station. Which would replicate the old-time layout by sticking an island platform with stairs/elevator next to the current platform track. You can easily see where that used to be on Google the way the next track over is conspicuously overspaced from the platform track and some random chunks of old pavement on that gap just east of the I-290 overpass give a clue that something used to be there. Just need to drop in a simple 800' x 12' full-high and a down-and-under egress into the station building. Not a huge deal.
