Boston Surface Railroad: Worcester-Providence Commuter Rail

Hmmmm.. Found this on Facebook from April 26th 2017..
https://www.facebook.com/nrichamber/pos ... 4520212065

Beats me!!!

The last new on their web site is of 1/15/2015

Is this dead now?

Might be on some form of "life support". With the G&W takeover of P&W,might be DOA soon.

It's a really cool idea, but nobody can figure out what their business model was - since they don't own the rails and may be dependent on the railroad for operating personnel. Value must be in exclusive contracts, which might be valuable if the service takes off. Value for the railroad is marginally more trains and eventually free government track upgrades for passenger speeds.

Is it dead? The website looks dead. Radio silence from the principals and the railroad. Are they using the office space they are "leasing" in the Woonsocket train station (depot?)? Do they answer their telephone? Maybe someone local knock on their door & find out, lol

theseaandalifesaver wrote:Is this dead now?

Backshophoss wrote:Might be on some form of "life support". With the G&W takeover of P&W,might be DOA soon.

BandA wrote:It's a really cool idea, but nobody can figure out what their business model was - since they don't own the rails and may be dependent on the railroad for operating personnel. Value must be in exclusive contracts, which might be valuable if the service takes off. Value for the railroad is marginally more trains and eventually free government track upgrades for passenger speeds.

Is it dead? The website looks dead. Radio silence from the principals and the railroad. Are they using the office space they are "leasing" in the Woonsocket train station (depot?)? Do they answer their telephone? Maybe someone local knock on their door & find out, lol

What makes this all so puzzling to me is the Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce "Welcoming" their membership in April.. FWIW their Massachusetts "annual report" was filed on 9 March 2017,, There seems to be absolutely ZIPPO on them in the RI. Secretary Of State's business database..

BandA wrote:Maybe someone local knock on their door & find out,

Gee, if it wasn't 61km. (38mi.) from me...

I have called a couple of times in the past and gotten either the phone answered by or a reply to a message left from a Nicole Done. I haven't called in almost a year however.

http://www.valleybreeze.com/2017-07-19/ ... XIEbNMrJhB" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Investor Vincent Bono expects to make major progress this week on his goal of transporting guests from the Woonsocket Train Depot to somewhere other than the North Pole.

Leaders from municipalities as far away as Nashua, N.H., are set to converge on the historic downtown train station, known for its holiday rides to a mythical North Pole, to discuss how they can help make Bono’s dream of additional regional commuter service a reality.

While Bono could not release all of the details of the meeting planned for Monday, July 24, he noted that the news for his fledging company, Boston Surface Railway Company, is big, and it will help the business gain access to needed funding.

“We are putting together a public/private partnership in hopes to work out a more regional transportation solution,” Bono, a Woonsocket resident, told The Breeze.

Some of this confirms what we already assumed:
-Lining up the financing is hard;
-Finding equipment is hard;
-Genessee & Wyoming is a tougher (or at least more bureaucratic) negotiating partner than Providence & Worcester.

Anyway, sounds like this isn't completely dead. At this point I'd rate it as at least the most plausible of the recent private-sector passenger rail proposals in New England. Seems more realistic than the Housy proposals or that Montreal-Portland-via-the-Grand-Trunk group from a few years back.

Basically still on "life support" for now......

He's probably going to announce their willingness to take over all commuter service in RI west of Providence, for a price less than T/Keolis would charge.

Well, there's a little bit more on the website now. http://bsrc.com/about-us/

BSRC has secured operational authority from the United States Surface Transportation Board (STB) to operate passenger service between Worcester, MA and Providence, RI and pending negotiations with the host railroad plans to commence service in 2018. BSRC has secured station rights in Worcester, entered into a long term lease to own for the historic train station in Woonsocket, RI and maintains an amicable working relationship with AMTRAK regarding Providence.

Not clear to me if an "amicable working relationship" involves the reconfiguration necessary at Boston Switch to allow access to the platform tracks at Providence from the P&W.

Rolling stock will be reconditioned equipment that will carry an estimated 150,000 annual passengers in its first year of operation (three percent of the total commuter population) growing to eight percent—or nearly four hundred fifty thousand annual riders—within five years.

150k/year is roughly the ridership of the Music City Star, the Nashville TN commuter rail line, in its first year of operation.

No word on what equipment will be, but the pics on the website show what appears to be an NJT Comet III cab car... and an FL9 (!)

IIRC, CDOT has a few FL9's left in mothballs that would be available for lease/own option.

Could BSR be a viable candidate for RIDOT's planned intra-state commuter service to Westerly [with an extension up to Worcester on some trains]?

No. Because RIDOT already has the Pilgrim Agreement with the MBTA making out-of-district running an effortless exercise for the T and Keolis. The Ocean State hasn't upped its % ownership share of the Purple Line equipment pool in recent years just to take a pass and get nostalgic for FL9's hauling retired Comets. The cost of building their own fare collection back-end instead of continuing to glom off of the T's current and next-gen systems alone are enough to foul the economics of making a breakaway move with the intrastate service. Both Providence-Westerly and Woonsocket-Wickford will fly under the T logo when the time comes...that's a 100% guarantee.


As for the distant future re: Worcester-Providence: the only legalities that would have to be squared are the MA towns of Blackstone, Uxbridge, and Mendon needing to vote themselves into the MBTA district to be covered under the service area of the P&W main. Rhode Island is covered by the Pilgrim Agreement; Bellingham, Northbridge, Sutton, and Auburn in MA are already MBTA district members by proximity to the Worcester & Franklin lines + connecting buses. Square those 3 town votes and it's legally just like any other MBTA service despite never touching Boston.