Bay Colony/Cape Cod rail line

The Provincetown branch was cut back to North Eastham in 1960, and then abandoned beyond South Dennis in 1965. The last regular customer beyond South Dennis was a sand pit in North Eastham that was served twice a week by a Hyannis-based local freight through at least the summer of 1964.

Just my luck.....one of the reasons I was prioritizing mapping to the Fall River line was because that was the last line that entered Rhode Island that hadn't been mapped yet......and then I discover that the line goes OOS 2 miles before the state line! Does this mean that the Newport railroad is off the FRA network?

Well, on the bright side, look for a Rhode Island trackmap release on this forum sometime this week.....

The Newport Railroad has a few grade crossings, so I believe it’s still under FRA regulations.

Newport's only isolated because the Sakonnet River bridge is out. It's totally FRA-compliant 10 MPH exempt track. The old swing bridge on the Fall River branch was damaged by an overloaded freight train in 1980 and taken OOS, then damaged by a barge hit in 1988 and deemed beyond repair. Bridge was demolished in 2007 to facilitate construction of the replacement span for adjacent Sakonnet River highway bridge. RIDOT owns the track, now designated the Newport Secondary. Active end-to-end on the island with Old Colony & Newport Scenic Railway as passenger operator. P&W retains dormant freight rights over it from the state line to Newport. Active track is maintained by a largely volunteer force by the OCNSC with some state maintenance subsidy, and other RR's lend them work and inspection equipment for free to barge over (some nice NERail shots of Guildford and CP Rail equipment on there). The portion of the line from Fall River yard to Tiverton and the former bridge is OOS but not abandoned and all grade crossings on the inactive portion are intact. CSX served a tank farm straddling the state line up until a few years ago. MassCoastal's got those rights now and the tank farm could opt back into deliveries much like the East Boston facility now is. P&W rights start at the border, but there's zilch business in Tiverton and it obviously can't get to Newport without barges or locomotives that can swim.

The Newport Dinner Train runs weekends in-season, and they run a few Spring trash trains when the island preps for tourist season. They purchased a couple Budd's a few years ago to expand service. RIDOT's mulling some subsidies to the Newport Scenic to upgraded track and expand to some limited multi-stop daily service on-island during peak months. They preserved the bridge approaches during the highway construction and have studied options for bus shuttles from Fall River to beefier on-island passenger rail should MBTA commuter rail ever reach the South Coast. Including recommendations to study building a new rail bridge for direct service to Fall River, contingent on start of T service being a lock before they commit any funding to study (obviously it's wasted change if FR/NB commuter rail gets upended).

So right now, could a train on the Newport Secondary reach the outside world via rail, or is that bridge the only way out?

checkthedoorlight wrote:So right now, could a train on the Newport Secondary reach the outside world via rail, or is that bridge the only way out?

Bridge was the only way out. I guess you could technically call the crossing railbanked/OOS at the moment since that's the Tiverton side's designation and there were no FRA filings changing that designation from the pre- 2007 intact OOS bridge to the post-2007 demolished crossing. No different than an OOS line having a trestle out or having ROW hardware temporarily removed as allowable in the railbanking statute. So long as RI doesn't change that designation with a full abandonment/landbank filing it's an at-will reactivation should they ever decide to build a new span. Unlikely they would change anything unless MBTA to Fall River got killed deader than dead.

Just to note that the Dennis Register reported last week
that the South Dennis to Station Ave.(S.Yarmouth)rail trail extension
is more a less a done deal,and that there's quite a bit of
private funding to go along with whatever they get from the state.
Old Bass River Rail Bridge has been gone since at least last fall too.

The mainline south of Ferry Streey in Fall River has been out of service since the 80's.
CSX never went south of Battleship Cove. As far as the right of way being intact,
it is heavily grown over with developement occuring right up to the tracks.

It's be interesting to see the reaction of the locals when Mass Coastal tries to reopen
the line to Gold Medal Bakery.

On a historical note, March 6th was the anniversary of an accident at the switch to the
Fall Gas Company. It was a freight from Newport rear-ending a Hyrail van. One person
died (in the van) about a week after the incident.

D

GP40MC1118 wrote: It's be interesting to see the reaction of the locals when Mass Coastal tries to reopen
the line to Gold Medal Bakery.

D

Are chances good this will happen?

Mass Coastal intends to reopen the line to Gold Medal, so I think its a good bet they attempt to reopen
the line when the weather finally breaks.

They did restore the runaround track at Battleship Cove/Water St late last year. It had been out of
service since a CSX derailment and a washout.

D

Is this new rail business, or is it a shift from a transload? I have seen Gold medal dry hopper trucks on 495/24 for years. Even if they transload at the yard its still great news. Just wait for the NIMBY's if they do restore the line south. It looks like the line skirts a middle school and some new developments.

Gold Medal is new / old business. Conrail used to service it before 1982-84. Whether it was transloading
after that from the state pier or Battleship Cove, don't know.

They are transloading off the state pier now, which will end IF the track gets reopened...

D

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:MassCoastal gained freight rights 2 years ago. They took over Cape Cod from Bay Colony, and the Fall River and New Bedford lines from CSX. CSX interchanges with them at Middleboro yard. Bay Colony is reduced now to only working a small portion of the Wattupa branch west of New Bedford.

Wattupa Branch = North Dartmouth IT? How far west is that line active now?

BTW, that yard at the end of the New Bedford Branch - what is it used for, and is that track back in service now? It was taken OOS about 10 years ago but recent aerial imagery shows that yard being active again.

checkthedoorlight wrote:

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:MassCoastal gained freight rights 2 years ago. They took over Cape Cod from Bay Colony, and the Fall River and New Bedford lines from CSX. CSX interchanges with them at Middleboro yard. Bay Colony is reduced now to only working a small portion of the Wattupa branch west of New Bedford.

Wattupa Branch = North Dartmouth IT? How far west is that line active now?

BTW, that yard at the end of the New Bedford Branch - what is it used for, and is that track back in service now? It was taken OOS about 10 years ago but recent aerial imagery shows that yard being active again.

Goes to Mid City Scrap in Westport just shy of the Route 6/Route 88 interchange. Rest of it is OOS/railbanked, but state hasn't officially flipped it to abandoned designation yet. There's a short paved bike path section from the I-195/Route 24 interchange going about 1/3 mile to Brayton Ave. It sure as hell ain't coming back since the half-mile between I-195/Route 81 and the junction with the Fall River branch was obliterated in the 50's for construction of 195 and the City Hall tunnel. Doesn't serve any strategic purpose if it can't link the two lines.

The Watuppa Branch was not obliterated by City Hall or I-195. The entire 13 mile line from New Bedford
is still largely intact except that west of Mid-City Scrap, its been out of service since 1982-84. Bay Colony
did operate as far as the Narrows/White's Resturant until Mass Crinc closed for a few years 1986 on.

From Route 88 (west of Mid-City) the track had literally sunk into the swamp. It was hoped BCLR would
have reopened it at least to the old Westport Drive-In site where Mid-City had set up a satilite facility,
but this never happened. A few loads for Primary Steel of Westport were off-loaded at Mid-City.

From Sanford Rd to end of track in Fall River, its being eyed for a bike path. A small portion, as
mentioned, exists at the Narrow's. Beyond Brayton Avenue and to the ponds, the track is still there
as are the trestles and the spur into the Old Frito Lay plant (comes off between the I-195 Eastbound
side and the exit ramp from 195E to Rt 24 South). Also the lead into the Watuppa Yard which goes
under 195 to Rodman Street.(now a big tree filled lot). Remember the mainline ended at Plymouth St.

An historical note - The NH did propose and actually start acquistion of parcels/easements of land in order to
connect the Watuppa to the Fall River mainline. The realignment would have started around
Flint Village across the ponds then tunnel down to an area just south of Bowenville Station. I think the
western portal would have been around Davol Street. The plans can be found in the UCONN NH archives.

As far as New Bedford Yard goes, that was rebuilt and used for several years to ship out PCB Sludge
being dredged from the harbor. Due to the reconstruction of three bridges in New Bedford, the
yard has been isolated (and not used) since Fall 2010. Bridge work not expected to be finished
until October 2011. Whether its gets used again is another story. The EPA has decided to cap the
sludge in the harbor to speed up the cleanup. This year's sludge is being trucked to Worcester and
loaded on to gondolas for the trip to Michigan for disposal. The spur into the sludge plant crosses
Herman Melville Blvd. with one track into the building and three stub storage tracks along side of it.

Dave