Telephone pole at Needham Heights

At the Needham Heights station, where Hunnewell Street crosses over the track, there is a telephone pole bearing a plaque with the following information:

CONRAIL
546 866 N
U.S.DOT - AAR

As far as I know, Conrail never owned this line; if memory serves, the New Haven sold it to the MBTA circa 1967. And if AAR is the Association of American Railroads, that's a lobbying group. What are its initials doing on a telephone pole?

BSRA says that the rest of the Needham branch beyond West Roxbury was purchased from Penn Central in 1973, which still predates Conrail by 3 years. A real head scratcher on that one unless Penn Central (and later Conrail) continued dispatching the line?

Conrail certainly had the freight rights, and temporarily operated T passenger trains on the south side until they were turned over to the B&M.

Maybe PC didn't sell the part of the line beyond Needham Heights, the part that PC then Conrail then Bay Colony ran freight to some local businesses on?

If you mean the rest of the line between Needham Heights and the Riverside line (Highland branch), that was purchased from Penn Central as well.

The AAR number at a crossing is an internal USDOT reference code for each crossing in the national rail network
and also is a reference for law enforcement and local emergency personnel in the event of a stalled vehicle, crash,
malfunctioning equipment or other situation.

Hunnewell Street crosses via a bridge over the track, though; unlike nearby West and Webster Streets, there is no grade crossing.

MBTA bus #59 coming from Newton comes up Webster Street, but instead of crossing the tracks and turning right on Highland Avenue, it turns right onto Hillside Avenue and left onto Hunnewell, crossing via the bridge before turning right onto Highland. I've always speculated that this is because the bus used to be a streetcar, and the New Haven Railroad didn't allow streetcars to cross its tracks at grade. Am I right?

I am not sure about a former streetcar route in this area but the bus taking the more tortuous route onto Hillside Ave would be to service stops in that neighborhood.

diburning wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2023 9:12 pm If you mean the rest of the line between Needham Heights and the Riverside line (Highland branch), that was purchased from Penn Central as well.

I did mean that. Thanks for the answer.

CharlesRiverBranch, the AAR is much more than a lobbying group: It's a standard-setting group, a coordinator of rules and data for car hire and other things about interchange of cars, sometimes a funder of research, basically an organization through which many railroads function as a system.

Most or all of the MBTA bus routes in Newton were originally streetcar trolley lines, with the #57 Watertown-Kenmore converted in 1968 from the Watertown "A" branch of the Green Line. The Trader Joe's in West Newton was originally built as a car barn and retains the original shape and apparently the structural steel. Definitely the #59 went from Watertown to Newton Highlands, not sure if it follows the historical routes from there. Routes including modern #53, #54, #56 including the Trader Joe's car barn were bustituted around 1930 when tracks were pulled from Washington St to install a water main for Boston.