Old Colony Bridge over Mass Pike in Framingham

It looks like the abandoned Old Colony/Contrail Bridge over the Mass Pike in Framingham near Pleasant Street is being rehabbed. Anybody know what's going on?

Regular MassHighway maintenance, probably. CSX has not yet sold the line to the state or allowed for trail use to proceed, and the abandonment proceeding is currently on its umpteenth deadline extension with the STB while the sides continue staring at each other. So it's definitely not related to the planned Bruce Freeman Trail extension, because that can't begin until the STB docket is formally settled.

I posted several weeks ago that I spotted a track machine parked on the line and several other pieces of construction equipment there also.

boatsmate wrote:I posted several weeks ago that I spotted a track machine parked on the line and several other pieces of construction equipment there also.

Can't be a track machine. CSX pulled the rail all the way up to South Sudbury, including on the bridge, in '04.


Underside of the bridge is not in real great shape and center abutment's starting to develop cracks, so MassDOT was probably due to give it some light repair: http://goo.gl/maps/hAAqi" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

Brief update on this since I drive under it almost every day; they painted the bridge above the catwalk in late September and then returned a few weeks ago to remove the catwalk itself. I would presume they're going to finish painting at some point.

As predicted, the paint crew has been back for the last few weeks finishing up the bottom half of the bridge.

I'm bringing up this old thread to post a link to a nice picture on NERAIL by Ron DeFilippo from 1972 of a Penn Central freight crossing this bridge. The train, bridge,and track all look in very good shape.
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... ex=3&key2=" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;