by highgreen215
I doubt very much that train service to Medfield or Millis would have much of an impact in reducing 109 traffic.
Railroad Forums
Moderators: sery2831, CRail
BostonUrbEx wrote:There was an article in the Metro today about how Needham wants to pave over the branch in their town. The other towns along the former line are against it, of course, but there's no mention of why. The Metro failed to note the towns' desires to reactivate rail service.Kind of ironic that the Dover NIMBY's that were so gung-ho for the trail as vehicle for salting over any active rail use ever again have turned on a dime and hate the trail. Coincidentally a mere few weeks after Bay Colony filed its formal abandonment with the STB for freight rights to Needham, thus settling the last bit of paperwork for ripping out the rails. Coincidentally. Somehow I doubt those two trail lobby blowhards ever suspected they were getting punked all along. They thought they were clever enough to get a "free" Iron Horse scam trail they could then shove onto an unwilling DCR to spend $$$ to upgrade and maintain.
Cosmo wrote:Ok, so...It's kaput. The trail won. They paid their $1 to the T for the 99-year lease, Bay Colony did its STB filing a month ago abandoning all freight rights from Medfield Jct. to Newton, and Needham has completed its trail design. The rails will be ripped out from a few hundred feet south of High Rock St. (via hook-in to an existing woodland path) to the Needham town line. The T will still be able to runaround equipment at the wye since the first 500+ feet past the switch will remain intact before the trail connector joins. Dover, amusingly, started NIMBY-infighting about the trail the second the trail was approved so their leg is now delayed and the trail cannot yet cross the Charles Bridge. It'll loop in the park along the Charles banks until they get their act together. Gee...who would've thought those notorious NIMBYs' intentions would be anything less than honorable?
I'm wondering what the CURRENT status of this (Needham-Dover-Millis) line is. Are the tracks still intact? Have the trail-people won anything resembling a legal action to remove anything from anything or has the State/MBTA told them nicely to tamp ballast?