New rumors about CSX purchasing the Fitchburg Line

GP40MC1118 wrote:I think this rumor comes from a proposed Ethanol operation in Everett. As I understand it, they wanted to be rail-served. There would be 90-car unit train several times a week. Since a train that size or even split in half would be a nightmare to operate through Cambridge via the Grand Jct Branch and across the Northside commuter rail trackage in Somerville, I bet someone thought of running it via Worcester/Ayer/Willows/MBTA
Fitchburg Route to Swift Interlocking in Somerville. That still wouldn't solve
operating through CR trackage in the Terminal district.

D

I'd think that regardless of whether you come from the Grand Junction or the Fitchburg Route, the only easy way thru the BET area would be at night...

If something like a 90-car unit train has to be broken up in chunks to go over the GJ, would Beacon Park have enough room to be yarding 90 car trains, several times a week, in preperation to across the river? To the casual observer the place doesn't seem to have a lot of elbow room.

Another scenario possible is for Pan Am [gawd, I hate that name for a railroad], to handle the train to Worcester, and hand it off to CSX as is the case now for some trains. Would CSX want to avoid dealing with Pan Am [ugh] that bad to buy the whole shabang to Worcester?

Well some trackwork will be needed on the Worcester mainline because
the list of slowdowns is getting longer...

10MPH MP3 to MP7, MP9 to MP20, MP21 to MP23, MP24 to MP25.
25MPH MP20 to MP21, MP23 to MP24 and MP25 to Harvard.

That's 18MPH of 10MPH track!

The Conn River is worse...

D

The line is basically all 10 MPH, I have never worked with an engineer that would speed up in between the tens when they were that close apart. And if you have a long train you couldnt anyways. From what I understand it takes almost 3 hours to go from Ayer to Worcester! When I was there 5 years ago, it took a lot less, and there was like only 4 miles of 10 MPH. It is a great line to work

CSX Conductor wrote:Hearing a very interesting rumor now that CSXT is eyeing the Fitchburg Line from Ayer into Boston, anybody else hear anything yet?

It seems kind of sillly to me for CSX to be eyeing tracks from Ayer to Boston when they don't have any tracks to Ayer in the first place. (Or did Guildford/Pan Am sell them the Worcester-Ayer line?)

If CSX really wants to get to Everett with 90-car unit trains, it'd probably make most sense to upgrade the Grand Junction (it's only a couple of miles, and CSX already owns it). The next most sensible route, IMNSHO, wouldn't be the Fitchburg Line (too much single track. lots of grade crossings and low bridges, and likely too much political flack) but going up via Lowell. Wasn't the Boston-Lowell mainline upgraded a few years back to support double-stack container traffic? (High clearances, most grade crossings eliminated, double-tracked all the way?)

I know where the grand junction goes from the pike, through cambridge, to about 93. Can someone show me, preferably on a map, where the REST of the grand junction is? I have no idea where you guys are talking about. Thanks

GP40MC1118 wrote:I think this rumor comes from a proposed Ethanol operation in Everett. As I understand it, they wanted to be rail-served. There would be 90-car unit train several times a week. Since a train that size or even split in half would be a nightmare to operate through Cambridge via the Grand Jct Branch and across the Northside commuter rail trackage in Somerville, I bet someone thought of running it via Worcester/Ayer/Willows/MBTA
Fitchburg Route to Swift Interlocking in Somerville. That still wouldn't solve
operating through CR trackage in the Terminal district.

D

When we first heard about this proposed operation we quickly came to the conclusion that the Fitchburg is the only way to get this train to Chelsea. If it came across the Grand Junction, once it left Beacon Park it could not be stopped until it cleared Everett Jct. If it stopped anywhere on the Grand Junction, there would be multiple grade crossings blocked. And once it entered Swift three out of the four Commuter lines would be blocked. Not to mention the 1.57% upgrade on the "new" Draw 7.

If you know this territory picture this: the head end of the train is just leaving Reading Jct. heading up this grade. The train stretches back through the reverse curves between Reading Jct. and FX, back through FX, through the #627 crossover at FX, down under the High Line Bridge, around the curve through Steward, and throught the crossover at Swift to the Fitchburg! Good luck running that train, CSX Con!

And what is the status of the track by the Coke Works? Can you pull out 90 empties, and set in 90 loads using the existing track?

It could run the New Hampshire, but I suspect Pan Am wouldn't want the train using the Stony Brook as it is mostly single track.

I'm guessing, but I think you can leave the cameras at home. I bet that this train will not traverse T territory until after the last passenger train has run for the day.

Of course there was a rumor within the rumor that CSX said, "Money is no object!"

Fascinating subject.

DAW

EdSchweppe wrote:Wasn't the Boston-Lowell mainline upgraded a few years back to support double-stack container traffic? (High clearances, most grade crossings eliminated, double-tracked all the way?)

That Lowell Line improvement was way back in the early 1980s, and I believe it was for conventional piggyback clearances only, not double stacks (but I could be wrong on that last point). The B&M's traditional freight route west out of Boston, the Hill Crossing Freight Cutoff via Davis Square, was set to become the Red Line right-of-way, and at that point the Lowell line couldn't clear piggybacks or other high cars. So tracks were lowered and bridges were raised and until the business went away under Guilford a few years later, B&M piggyback traffic out of Boston was routed Boston-Lowell-Ayer.

It's been all double track since at least the early 20th century if not earlier and the grade crossing eliminations at places like Winchester generally go back to the mid-20th century. That's not recent work.

I'm guessing, but I think you can leave the cameras at home

I bet that train would go slow enough that a long-exposure could be done! Either way, I'd like to see peoples' faces when a 90 car train cruises the Fitchburg line!

130MM wrote:[f course there was a rumor within the rumor that CSX said, "Money is no object!"
DAW

Yeah, money is no object, except for when it comes to paying us to qualify on the territory, then they'll tell us we need to do it on our own time.

CSX = Co$t $Avings Xtroardinares

The one problem with the Lowell Line, presuming GRS went for this, is
that the 4th Iron between Somerville Jct and Walnut St crossovers (No.2
Track only) has been out of service since a DOBO derailment 12/21/01!

Guilford didn't bother to fix it, so now both freights (DOBO/LOSA) have
to use handthrow switches to get in/out of old Yard 8 INSTEAD of going
in and out on signals at Somerville Jct.

Dave

Ron Newman wrote:Hazmat?? Somerville will yell and scream. There was a very serious hazmat spill near Brickbottom in Somerville on April 3, 1980, requiring mass evacuations. Read more about it here.

Another article about the spill

One will note that in the article on the need for better hazmat response, it says uninformed firefighters caused havoc by spraying water on the phosphorus trichloride, while the piece lauding the former fire chief says it was simply "ground moisture" to blame. Interesting.

GP40MC1118 wrote: Guilford didn't bother to fix it, so now both freights (DOBO/LOSA) have
to use handthrow switches to get in/out of old Yard 8 INSTEAD of going
in and out on signals at Somerville Jct.

Dave

As I've said before about this outfit: "What a way to run a railroad".

Waaaaaaaait a minute, why would CSX running a train down the lowell boston line have anything to do with guilford? Its all MBTA isn't it?

Under the terms of the original 1977 sale agreement, the Guilford organization has exclusive rights to freight operation on the ex-B&M trackage that's owned by the MBTA. Thus, CSX would have to work out a deal with Guilford as well as the MBTA to operate on the Lowell line. The CSX trackage rights operation to its Chelsea customers is a different situation; that already existed as a Conrail operation when the B&M sold the trackage to the state in 1977 and it was grandfathered in.