Grafton & Upton Railroad (G&U) Discussion

OH OK !! Whewwwwww. I was just imagining CF-7 and older geeps running down to the Westwood industrial with cab signals! Seeing the G&U in Readville everyday instead of CSX ! Older Geeps running by my house daily! So just for kicks would this mean the G&U could run down to Walpole if they wanted? Pick up an errant car perhaps? Hypothetically it would be the only place to turn a loco if needed, am I right?

Narrowgauger wrote:OH OK !! Whewwwwww. I was just imagining CF-7 and older geeps running down to the Westwood industrial with cab signals! Seeing the G&U in Readville everyday instead of CSX ! Older Geeps running by my house daily! So just for kicks would this mean the G&U could run down to Walpole if they wanted? Pick up an errant car perhaps? Hypothetically it would be the only place to turn a loco if needed, am I right?

I don't think that's in the cards, because that would require G&U keeping up their crew qualifications on the Franklin main. Which the T isn't going to be keen on if they're never going to be used, and which G&U is too staff-meager for that to be a good use of their time. CSX also has strategic reasons for keeping the Franklin main in-house to prevent any P&W intrusion inside I-495 if the landbanked ROW to Blackstone and the P&W junction were ever reinstated (note: RIDOT has outlined in its 2014 State Rail Plan that Boston-Woonsocket commuter rail via a reanimated P&W junction at the old Blackstone station is a study consideration if MassDOT is willing to partner with the study...so while unlikely the need for CSX to protect that flank is not at all far-fetched).

G&U headquarters is North Grafton. CSX has Framingham-Worcester jobs running all day long past North Grafton. The T runs high frequencies all day past North Grafton. And at most optimistic at developing new biz G&U will never need to run more than a couple days a week into MBTA territory at Forge Park to reach the Franklin customers...it'll be variable how far they run down the Milford Branch, with Milford and Bellingham probably seeing more trains per week than Franklin does. There's no need to. If there was a 50-year flood or something that left the Worcester Line out near North Grafton waterlogged for several days...yeah, then I could see some cars being interchanged at Franklin runaround for anything particularly time-sensitive and CSX doing a one-off south of Walpole for pickup. But that's almost literally the only scenario where hand-offs at that end of the system are going to be worth anyone's while. The frequencies at North Grafton are simply too much better for all 3 carriers for that to not always be the easiest option.


Franklin Industrial and Milford both have runarounds, but it takes two reverse moves to work the Franklin Industrial out of Hopedale so both will get used on any given trip (unless G&U can ever install a southbound wye at Milford, which is unlikely given the wetlands). The only MBTA territory that gets fouled is one sporadic customer between Forge Park and Franklin Jct., and the backup move at Franklin Jct. on/off the main. Otherwise it's such a short trip they're in and out of CR dispatch's hair in a few minutes. The actual runaround is on the Franklin Industrial near the end-of-track at Grove St. They have two means of access to get onto the Industrial: the crossover right at the junction, and the switch just south of Franklin station and the Central St. overpass. They'll probably get rights for both, and a division post at the switch to the Franklin MBTA layover at the north end of the Franklin station platform. But with a stated T preference to use the southernmost crossover whenever possible so they don't have to back into the Franklin station platform (there was a bad CSX vs. MBTA accident there a few that wrecked some coaches and caused some moderately serious passenger injuries, so they'd be understandably skittish about reverses being staged around the platform or layover yard).

There's a few places at Franklin Jct. to store equipment, so you might see some cars and MoW equipment with G&U markings hanging around there on the various little sidings by that Union St. dirt patch and the Franklin Paint Co./Mayflower Textiles complex. It's not a bad place for a little team track biz if they can find interested customers, since the ample-sized dirt patch behind Agway has driveway access to both Union and Cottage St. for unloading and there's two 495 exits less than a half-mile away in each direction.

A joint motion on behalf of the Town of Grafton and the "Upton Gang of Seven" has been filed asking the appeals court to combine and consolidate the Grafton appeal with the "Upton Gang of Seven" appeal into one case. In other words they want to confuse things and muddy the waters to avoid clearly focusing on the facts that are unique and specific to each case. The same law firm that represents the Grafton Selectmen also represents the Upton Gang of 7.

The motion states that "The Petitioners believe that simultaneous review will give the Court the benefit of a fuller picture of the pattern of action by Intervenor GURR relative to the ICCTA preemption provisions, as well as the erroneous application of 49 U.S.C. § 10501(b) by the Respondent STB."

In my view this statement indicates that the purpose of the motion is to try to turn the focus away from facts and more towards an argument that G&U is engaged in a pattern of bad behavior.

This now absolutely confirms the degree to which the two efforts are coordinated and it confirms in my mind that this is fundamentally a witch hunt and an effort to inflict as much financial damage on G&U as possible by causing as much delay as possible and not a legitimate attempt to seek a review of the Declaratory Order of the Surface Transportation Board.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:
The only MBTA territory that gets fouled is one sporadic customer between Forge Park and Franklin Jct., and the backup move at Franklin Jct. on/off the main.

...stuff snipped...

But with a stated T preference to use the southernmost crossover whenever possible so they don't have to back into the Franklin station platform (there was a bad CSX vs. MBTA accident there a few that wrecked some coaches and caused some moderately serious passenger injuries, so they'd be understandably skittish about reverses being staged around the platform or layover yard).

The customer is/was Clark/Cutler. It has received a total of one car since the extension to Forge Park was constructed in the late '80's or early '90's. The switch has been removed.

And when and where was this MBTA- CSX accident? I know my memory is weak, but I don't recall anything like that.

DAW

Atwater wrote:A joint motion on behalf of the Town of Grafton and the "Upton Gang of Seven" has been filed asking the appeals court to combine and consolidate the Grafton appeal with the "Upton Gang of Seven" appeal into one case. In other words they want to confuse things and muddy the waters to avoid clearly focusing on the facts that are unique and specific to each case. The same law firm that represents the Grafton Selectmen also represents the Upton Gang of 7.

The motion states that "The Petitioners believe that simultaneous review will give the Court the benefit of a fuller picture of the pattern of action by Intervenor GURR relative to the ICCTA preemption provisions, as well as the erroneous application of 49 U.S.C. § 10501(b) by the Respondent STB."

In my view this statement indicates that the purpose of the motion is to try to turn the focus away from facts and more towards an argument that G&U is engaged in a pattern of bad behavior.

This now absolutely confirms the degree to which the two efforts are coordinated and it confirms in my mind that this is fundamentally a witch hunt and an effort to inflict as much financial damage on G&U as possible by causing as much delay as possible and not a legitimate attempt to seek a review of the Declaratory Order of the Surface Transportation Board.

The Friends of The Grafton and Upton Railroad's facebook page is reporting that from November 2012 to January 2015 the Town of Grafton has "invested" US$87,600 of taxpayers' funds in to this Sisyphean effort..

Drove by the N. Grafton yard yesterday, and the propane filling racks are built up. I could not see if the piping was complete. Two sidings are complete and connected with non-propane freight stored on each (center-flows, center beams, a tank car and a box car). Looks like they are ready to install the tanks next.

Where are the tanks now, Fall River area? Are they near a RR so they could be brought to N. Grafton via rail? Or do they have to be delivered by truck? That could be the next road block since they will be over sized loads on the highway.

Probably can't go out by rail right now due to the highway reconstruction at
Battleship Cove (RT 79). The mainline is out of service and partially removed
for over a year now due to this project.

Dave

GP40MC1118 wrote:Probably can't go out by rail right now due to the highway reconstruction at
Battleship Cove (RT 79). The mainline is out of service and partially removed
for over a year now due to this project.

Dave

That would be here, for those of you unfamiliar: http://goo.gl/maps/Vmo1u" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

Those crumbling spaghetti ramps to/from I-195 and MA 79 that go 3 decks high piled over the railbed and city streets are all coming down and being "boulevarded" into a much lower-profile interchange. First funded phase in what'll eventually be a complete teardown of ugly, underutilized MA 79 between Route 6 and I-195. As you can clearly see the temporary rail disruption to the docks is rather unavoidable given how many to-be-demolished decks overhang the tracks. 2015's the year the really heavy-duty ramp demo happens, so scheduled resumption of service is probably about another year away. New Bedford's picking up some of the slack during the temp outage, and Mass Coastal knew from Day 1 when it bought CSX's freight rights that the construction outage was scheduled for FR.

Actually, most if not all, of the demo has already happened.

D

I should of said, tracks out of service, south of Battleship Cove.
Battleship Cove didn't have much of a disruption of service.

New Bedford couldn't pick up any slack due to the mainline south of Myricks
being Excepted Track. Whether the tie job has done away with that issue
is unknown.

The tanks are south of there on the Fall River Gas site.

D

Thank you for the link to the area, F-Line. I believe the gas tanks mentioned by GP40MC1118 are visible in the link and appear to be loaded on dollies for the road move to N Grafton.

The Friends of The Grafton and Upton Railroad's facebook page has an unabridged copy of the "Final Legal Response" from the Town Of Grafton. Note that this includes the "Motion For Leave To File Reply Brief In Excess Of Allowable Word Count" (interestingly, the copy on the town's website omits this part) Click the image to view.

Are the lawyers for the Town of Grafton working for a flat fee or is it the normal $300+/hr rate?

The excess allowable word count would cost a few extra shekels then.

Hi
This afternoon took down to the Milford interchange at the cemetery on Vernon st, I saw some ties curving to the left , with no rail on them , just past the RR crossing . I not sure if they were put down this year or last year ,, maybe someone out there can answer the question .

Hi
This morning driving by the route 140 grade crossing, ballast has been put down , just west of the crossing .