by johnhenry
Anyone know the location of the "No Name" siding that is either on the Worcester Branch of the Hill Yard (east of Harvard)?
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SpiderHill wrote:I know Barber's is the interchange point but does anyone know where ownership changes between B&M and P&W? I believe it is Barbers which would mean B&M would have trackage rights from Barbers to some place towards Union Station. This would allow them to server Norton and the Greg's siding. I also remember in that 80s timeframe the Circus train would get split and half would be stored on the Greg's side of 290 and half would be stored on the other side (there were tracks where Peterson and CK Smith Oil are now). I remember going to see the train departing north and talking to a Guilford crew member. There is also a customer that receives covered hoppers on a siding that can be seen from 190. If I recall correctly, I believe the P&W serves this customer. This customer would be between Greg's and Norton. The P&W purchased the Gardner branch in the early 70s so there must have been some type of agreement on serving customers on this stretch as part of the sale.Barbers is the division post. P&W's Gardner Branch ownership includes everything down to Union Station and the tracks ducking under the B&A into the P&W yard. It's all trackage rights there for PAR. I'm surprised Guilford let P&W have it all when they sold the Gardner Branch instead of protecting that short link. It's kind of a capacity problem today because Worcester Branch has an official 286K rating, but the P&W gap from Barbers is a 263K restriction.
F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:It's kind of a capacity problem today because Worcester Branch has an official 286K rating, but the P&W gap from Barbers is a 263K restriction.What is the obstacle, a structure needing a rebuild or a trackwork problem?
fogg1703 wrote:Dunno. There's a viaduct from Union Station and the B&A junction to the tunnel under Worcester Medical Ctr. and another bridge out the north portal over MLK Blvd. But the tunnel + immediate approaches are new construction from when the Med Ctr. was built. Other than that it's at-grade or in a cut all the way to Barbers with zero undergrade structures. Mainline track looks to be all CWR in good condition, crossings all gated with surfaces in fair/decent condition. Whatever is holding it back from an uprate can't be anything major or costly. Might just be that the Gardner Branch post-split is still in 'rustic' B&M-era condition so P&W is just not ready to sink the resources into it. Both P&W mainlines are every-other-car 286K, so their capital and public grant thrust right now is getting those 100% up-to-spec for every car. It's going to be awhile before the G. Branch gets some love, though the State Rail Plan does pin it as a future double-stack route after all the top PAS, NECR, and P&W mains priorities are settled up.F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:It's kind of a capacity problem today because Worcester Branch has an official 286K rating, but the P&W gap from Barbers is a 263K restriction.What is the obstacle, a structure needing a rebuild or a trackwork problem?
F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Wasn't the sale of the Gardner branch just after the P&W became independent again? That would have been years before Guilford was in the picture.
Barbers is the division post. P&W's Gardner Branch ownership includes everything down to Union Station and the tracks ducking under the B&A into the P&W yard. It's all trackage rights there for PAR. I'm surprised Guilford let P&W have it all when they sold the Gardner Branch instead of protecting that short link. It's kind of a capacity problem today because Worcester Branch has an official 286K rating, but the P&W gap from Barbers is a 263K restriction.
fogg1703 wrote:Thanks for the info F Line. While doing a little more research on the matter, it seems that in the "darker" GRS days the CR interchange was moved from Rotterdam Jct to Barbers in order to reduce maintenance costs along the west end. I bet CSXT appreciates this arrangement as it keeps a strong hand for them at the table for NE and maritime traffic as well as reduces transit times over D3 for CSXT bound traffic. I wonder if Waterville intermodal gets going if PAR and CSXT (mostly CSXT) will just upgrade whatever the obstacle is without state intervention. I'm sure PW wont mind. Depending on the scope of the project, a small price to pay to take some IM loads away from PAS/NS.I believe this arrangement came as a byproduct of Ford wanting to use trilevel racks for their automobile shipments into Ayer. The west end clearances prevented this so clearances were raised between Worcester and Ayer. There was a combination of undercutting and bridge raising. This included raising the Fitchburg secondary track that crosses the Worcester branch in Clinton. I am sure Conrail paid for much if not all of this work. I remember seeing trains with just racks. Later on came general freight. With a rebuilt line for the auto traffic in place, moving the rest of the interchange traffic over was probably an easy decision that resulted in the west end downgrade.