North-South Rail Link Discussion

johnpbarlow wrote:Congressman Moulton is "bumping" this thread per article in today's Globe: http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/201 ... story.html

Interesting excerpt - maybe he has credibility on the topic:

Most everyone thinks of Moulton as the decorated military veteran, but before he won his seat in 2014, the Harvard MBA grad spent a year working on a high-speed rail project in Texas. In other words, he knows a lot about trains and transportation.

A high speed rail project in Texas is similar to building a deep tunnel under an old congested seacoast urban city in the Northeast??

Rockingham Racer wrote:I doubt working in transportation for only a year would certify real expertise.

But at the same time, it's likely one year more than any of the other politicians involved with this...

Someone is out on Twitter advocating the link. https://twitter.com/NSRailLink" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; . A lot of rhetoric being spewed without much detail.

Baker meanwhile is not beating around the bush: https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/20 ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.northsouthraillink.org/about/

Who We Are

Citizens for the North South Rail Link is a volunteer organization brought together by former Governors Michael Dukakis, William Weld, and a coalition of advocates from across the region in support of better and more effective, efficient and sustainable transportation policies.

What is "a coalition of advocates from across the region"? A bit anonymous for my tastes. No copyright or privacy statement, no spokesperson. A "volunteer organization", hopefully with no paid advocates.

* * * *

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/ ... urn false;

...midday layover facilities. Some areas that the department said it is considering include Beacon Park Yard in Allston, Readville-Yard 2 at 50 Wolcott Court, and Widett Circle in South Boston.

Geez, this just replaces what was removed and destroyed in the 1960s, when the New Haven was trying to cancel all passenger trains, and the Worcester line was running about one eighth as many trains as now. I love that Mike Dukakis is a transit advocate, but he is rooted in the C-Cleveland Circle line, in a world where trolleys are constantly in motion, don't require storage space, don't require waiting rooms, only need 8' wide low platforms. You need to park the trains somewhere during the day because everybody is working in Boston, not in Walpole, that's where their bedrooms are. That is not going to change (much) in the next 25 years.

MassDOT received a grant of $32.5 million from the Federal Railroad Administration in 2011 to study the potential of expanding South Station. The study must be completed by June 2017 when the grant expires. The project is estimated in the range of $1.6 billion.

According to the transportation department, three times as many trains arrive per hour in the peak hours compared to the off-peak hours of the day. That uneven demand creates the need for the midday storage where the trains can sit for about 4.5 hours between rush hours.

Amen. So they are doing this now because the grant is about to expire. Typical.

[City Councilor Michael Flaherty said] ....“Widett circle is a jewel in Boston where there are over 20 business, and over 1,000 employees. This annual event of trying to take [Widett Circle] needs to stop.

This part of the article really gives me pause. Government destroying businesses and jobs to benefit wealthy landlords in downtown.

Maybe we should just truncate every other train at Back Bay and let everyone take the orange line. That should work.

To build this rail link will be incredibly expensive. To summarize previous debates around here, it will require deep underground train stations below North and South Stations, and multiple tunnels extending far out to get the slope right. Unless you want to implement a cog or cable railway or some other technology. Electrification of the tunnels and all or most of the Commuter Rail lines. But then you could electrify the rail yards which makes it easier to build air rights over the rail yards, which would be incredibly cool, until the sea level rises.

I would think the Fed DOT would be heavily involved in financing the NSRL as interstate trains would be running on both ends. If it is all electric with no diesel power (and it should be), the clean air and environmental quality guys would certainly support it. The independent study ok'd by Baker, weighing the pros and cons, should result in a no-brainer GO.

highgreen215 wrote:I would think the Fed DOT would be heavily involved in financing the NSRL as interstate trains would be running on both ends. If it is all electric with no diesel power (and it should be), the clean air and environmental quality guys would certainly support it. The independent study ok'd by Baker, weighing the pros and cons, should result in a no-brainer GO.

Who knows where (if anywhere) this will go, but I recall reading years ago that the plan was to install catenary in the tunnel, and convert the fleet to dual mode diesel / electric locomotives.

highgreen215 wrote:I would think the Fed DOT would be heavily involved in financing the NSRL as interstate trains would be running on both ends. If it is all electric with no diesel power (and it should be), the clean air and environmental quality guys would certainly support it. The independent study ok'd by Baker, weighing the pros and cons, should result in a no-brainer GO.

The multibillion cost of the tunnel, plus two (or three) deep underground stations, plus miles of catenary, plus electric locomotives, would exceed 100% of the fares they could charge, driving down the T's farebox recovery. The governator and the T's fiscal management board will say NO-GO.

I see on that nsrl boosters map shows Southcoast rail and trains to Montreal will be accomplished too.

Fare box recovery is the least of the concerns involved in this project. The over all economic benefits to the city and state would be tremendous, eventually running far beyond the costs you mentioned.

BandA wrote:

highgreen215 wrote:I would think the Fed DOT would be heavily involved in financing the NSRL as interstate trains would be running on both ends. If it is all electric with no diesel power (and it should be), the clean air and environmental quality guys would certainly support it. The independent study ok'd by Baker, weighing the pros and cons, should result in a no-brainer GO.

The multibillion cost of the tunnel, plus two (or three) deep underground stations, plus miles of catenary, plus electric locomotives, would exceed 100% of the fares they could charge, driving down the T's farebox recovery. The governator and the T's fiscal management board will say NO-GO.

I see on that nsrl boosters map shows Southcoast rail and trains to Montreal will be accomplished too.

The tunnel, stations, catenary, and electric locomotives are capital costs: they don't count in farebox recovery (which is defined by operating revenue relative to operating costs).

Viewed strictly from the perspective of farebox recovery, the NSRL is a "do it ASAP": if the NSRL existed today and most of the lines were electrified to, say, 128, the MBTA's farebox recovery, even with a minimally modified fare structure, would be 20-30 points better (70-80%) and the actual dollar value of state subsidy for commuter rail would be about half of what it is today. The MBTA is essentially setting $100 million (growing 5% annually) every year on fire by not doing NSRL + partial electrification.

Toss in the real estate gains from rationalizing and relocating yards, and the NSRL + partial electrification makes sense as long as it costs less than about $10 billion.

I think they should electrify first, I just don't see how the tunnel gets built anywhere near a reasonable budget that doesn't paralyze the state with more debt. We can't even build a 4 mile light rail extension on state owned surface ROW right now.

It's silly to contemplate tunnels in a coastal city. What will you do with the rising sea levels?

BandA wrote:http://www.northsouthraillink.org/about/ I love that Mike Dukakis is a transit advocate, but he is rooted in the C-Cleveland Circle line, in a world where trolleys are constantly in motion, don't require storage space, don't require waiting rooms, only need 8' wide low platforms.

Michael Dukakis has been a strong advocate for both intercity and long distance rail transit for a very long time; do you have any evidence for this mindset or is this just a gratuitous swipe?

You need to park the trains somewhere during the day because everybody is working in Boston, not in Walpole, that's where their bedrooms are. That is not going to change (much) in the next 25 years.

Perhaps the level of reverse commuting won't change much, but certainly where the destinations that are desirable to serve with rail transit will. Where will the next rounds of growth occur? Nearly all in areas which are difficult to access from one of the two sides of the current rail network. Seaport District and Allston Landing are difficult to get to from North Station; Assembly & NorthPoint from South (plus Suffolk Downs, should horse racing ever be rationally abandoned & a station built on the nearby Newburyport/Rockport lines). You also have the next ring of towns with good rail access and space for development -- places like Chelsea. Plus, these will place additional loads on the central subway network, which NSRL would moderate by enabling commuter rail passengers to either go directly to their destination (e.g. North Side to Back Bay) or defer switching to subway until relatively late. This is the value that NSRL brings, tying together all of the bedroom terminals with all of the job creating areas, rather than a bifurcated system in which rail transit is impractical for a much larger number of commutes.

London gets this -- they're in the midst of building their second major cross-city rail tunnel, in order to connect communities across the urban core, as well as repeatedly expanding the Overground network of rapid transit frequencies running over commuter-type rail systems. That's the model Boston needs to follow.

If you really want to link bedrooms and workplaces and alleviate traffic, build a rail line to Burlington.

A service to Burlington is going to cater to more people than a service impacting every service in and out of North and South stations?