Connecticut River Line (Pan Am)

newpylong wrote:Wow, I did have a lot of skepticism that they wouldn't finish, but I think they will now, or very close to it. Thanks to that surfacing gang.

They are almost done with the station track in Greenfield from what I have been told as well.

I can tell you as a person who works on the RR I does not take long to get things up and running expecially when you work 7 days a week , 12 to 16 hr days and have experienced RR workers.

Big gangs as you have seen can get it done when all looks bleak.

The finer details will be the challenge. Signals system, station platforms, ect.

I was checking out some of the timbers on some of the bridges and I know these will need to be addressed also.
Or they are going to be speed restrictions.

From June 1987 Passenger Train Journal

surfacer wrote:

whatelyrailfan wrote:From everything I've read/seen online along with my own observations, PanAm is in the process of rebuilding/replacing the original southbound track from just south of the salvage yard to just north of North Street. The present track will likely be used as a long passing siding or some such.
Peace,
Jonathan

I believe from what I been reading that between CP16 and CP18 will actually be double track and not just a passing siding.

As far as I know it's going to be double main, not a controlled siding. There are no hand throw switches so no reason to designate it a CS.

newpylong wrote:

surfacer wrote:

whatelyrailfan wrote:From everything I've read/seen online along with my own observations, PanAm is in the process of rebuilding/replacing the original southbound track from just south of the salvage yard to just north of North Street. The present track will likely be used as a long passing siding or some such.
Peace,
Jonathan

I believe from what I been reading that between CP16 and CP18 will actually be double track and not just a passing siding.

As far as I know it's going to be double main, not a controlled siding. There are no hand throw switches so no reason to designate it a CS.

Glad to hear that! That section was double-tracked when I was a kid in the 70s, I can remember two tracks crossing the driveway of the salvage yard for instance. Oh, and on the subject of clueless reporters, I love it when they say things like "Returning passenger service to western Massachusetts". When you think about it, western Mass HAS passenger service, it's only the towns between Springfield and Brattleboro that the Montrealer used to serve that have been without DIRECT service. You can catch the Lake Shore Limited in Springfield or Pittsfield, and catch numerous trains south from Springfield. Also "Returning the Vermonter to it's original route", when the Vermonter has never run on the Conn River line. There's two kinds of reporters as far as I can tell: Those who know very little about railroading, and those who know nothing.
Peace,
Jonathan

Work has now started on the temporary high-level platform in Northampton. There was a small crew from LM Heavy Construction working at the site this morning when I passed through town.

The NS work train is still parked on the siding in Northampton. A tamper was working on the curve just north of Damon Road (in Northampton) at about 10:30 a.m. today.

Getting a temp platform up in Northampton so there's at least one intermediate stop open for the changeover shouldn't be hard. The state got a wood ADA full-high installed at Wareham for this year's Cape Flyer season within weeks this Spring. And within a couple months of it being formally greenlit. Not just a mini-high, but a few cars long. If it's not intended to be in service for more than a year or two, it doesn't matter if it's constructed like a front porch on sale from Home Depot. That's plenty good enough in a pinch if the full station construction is going to be churning along in the background for 2015 or even into '16. There are plenty worse and less accessible platforms in daily service around this state than pristine-condition pressure-treated wood with ramp. It's not like it's going to need to hold up for more than 2 years even though the materials themselves are probably good for 10.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Getting a temp platform up in Northampton so there's at least one intermediate stop open for the changeover shouldn't be hard. The state got a wood ADA full-high installed at Wareham for this year's Cape Flyer season within weeks this Spring. And within a couple months of it being formally greenlit. Not just a mini-high, but a few cars long. If it's not intended to be in service for more than a year or two, it doesn't matter if it's constructed like a front porch on sale from Home Depot. That's plenty good enough in a pinch if the full station construction is going to be churning along in the background for 2015 or even into '16. There are plenty worse and less accessible platforms in daily service around this state than pristine-condition pressure-treated wood with ramp. It's not like it's going to need to hold up for more than 2 years even though the materials themselves are probably good for 10.

Except for pesky things like building codes. It may only be temporary, but it has to be built as though it were permanent to pass code. Not that doing so will add a ton of time onto the project, but you can't just throw up a jury rigged structure.

Hux wrote:

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Getting a temp platform up in Northampton so there's at least one intermediate stop open for the changeover shouldn't be hard. The state got a wood ADA full-high installed at Wareham for this year's Cape Flyer season within weeks this Spring. And within a couple months of it being formally greenlit. Not just a mini-high, but a few cars long. If it's not intended to be in service for more than a year or two, it doesn't matter if it's constructed like a front porch on sale from Home Depot. That's plenty good enough in a pinch if the full station construction is going to be churning along in the background for 2015 or even into '16. There are plenty worse and less accessible platforms in daily service around this state than pristine-condition pressure-treated wood with ramp. It's not like it's going to need to hold up for more than 2 years even though the materials themselves are probably good for 10.

Except for pesky things like building codes. It may only be temporary, but it has to be built as though it were permanent to pass code. Not that doing so will add a ton of time onto the project, but you can't just throw up a jury rigged structure.

There was nothing jury-rigged about Wareham's structure. It's a pretty substantial installation: http://goo.gl/maps/KyUdY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and http://capeflyer.com/wp/wp-content/uplo ... 2014_1.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. But the building materials made all the difference in how fast they were able to move on it. It's wood decking with the only concrete being the ground pour around the posts, took vastly shorter time to permit because of the less-invasive construction, and went up in the span of a few weeks. It's not designed to last more than 10 years, but is designed to hold at full state-of-repair until 10 years.

You're exactly right: rinky-dink won't fly. But they already proved once this year that temporary doesn't mean rinky-dink and that rapid construction is eminently doable right in the middle of a small rich town's historic district. If they get the posts installed at Northampton before first ground freeze, this is construction they can do right up till Xmas. Pressure-treated wood and nailed together decking and fencing 48 inches or higher off the ground aren't temperature- or frozen precipitation- sensitive jobs. There's nothing special about a 6 ft. width trackside area of impact at Northampton that would make this different from Wareham, especially when they are already approved for the much slower construction job on that same exact space for the permanent, long-lasting platform.

CPF363 wrote:

newpylong wrote:North of WRJ and south of West River (roughly Brattlboro) is currently dark now on the NECR. They got the money to do south of West River to the MA/VT border and though Amtrak says that's done, it isn't.

Any idea when NECR plans to extend the CTC down to East Northfield? Also, is the switch at East Northfield due to be replaced as part of the overall Vermonter upgrades? Movements over the current switch are done at 10MPH.

A question revisited . I was able to make it up to the Conn River LIne today. I went all the way to East Northfield and took a good look at the switch.

I can see why it is 10mph over this switch . The whole sw. is 100 lb rail, the frog is beat and I mean wing rail is worn and looks likes it been welded to many times. Same with the frog point and . It is probably hard to find a replacement because 100lb rail is no longer made so any 100 lb frogs lying around that would be in decent shape are hard to find. New iron is needed.
Timbers new to be replaced, need surfacing. Sw points are in a hole(a dip in the points).

Best case scenario would be to survey the track to see if a high speed #37 turnout 136 lb rail 80 mph with moveable point frog could be used for the diverging move.( highly unlikely). If track was posted for 60 or 70 then no slow down at all.

I imagine a more conservative approach will be done and a brand new pandrol plated #20 turnout using 115 or 136 lb rail will be the choice. Then the speed can be upped to 45 mph on the diverging move.

Coming north on the NECR 100lb rail runs into and through the sw.then at the points it ties into 115 CWR . I guess they skipped the south end when they were replacing rail.

I would say that, if not now then when everything is up and running and they can find areas to improve time performance on this will be one of them.

surfacer wrote: A question revisited . I was able to make it up to the Conn River LIne today. I went all the way to East Northfield and took a good look at the switch.
...

Thank you for the detailed information! I posted pictures of this switch about 2 weeks ago but since I don't have the expert knowledge I was unable to determine why the speed is restricted on this turnout. Now I/we know.

Saw these two locos with a hopper and two tank cars parked across from the box plant in Hamp last week while biking up Rt 5.



Rich

Greenfield is getting a wooden mini-high temporary platform too:

Construction of the temporary platform will begin within the next few weeks and be completed by late December.

In the picture in the link just posted about the Greenfield platform, is that CWR waiting to be installed that I see on both sides of the existing jointed rail??
JS
PS. The site let me see the article and picture when I looked earlier, but now it asks me to login and pay... Maybe you get only one view?

The EGE wrote:Greenfield is getting a wooden mini-high temporary platform too:

Construction of the temporary platform will begin within the next few weeks and be completed by late December.

Interesting that "Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority" and their logo are on the rendering image. That's a bit of a ways out of district for them.