Seaport District to Back Bay DMU Plan

SeaportMike wrote:-The grade crossing at New Fargo Street and Pumphouse Road have an odd crossing warning system set up. At the crossings they have their own pedestrian crossing "crosswalk buttons", with signs that read "Train Crossing, Engineer Press Button". When pressed, the normally green traffic light simply turns red. This is a huge issue that will need to be corrected.

While there are certainly better technologies to get a train across quickly, even that would be a major step up for the Silver Line traffic light at D Street. A billion dollars and they still couldn't put in a simple loop detector to make the light change...

No link, personal experience. I can go into details if needed. Here is one of the crossings in question:

SeaportMike wrote:No link, personal experience. I can go into details if needed. Here is one of the crossings in question:

But I see no warning signals. What happens when you push the button?

If you look carefully above the green/white directional sign there is a set of traffic lights. The lights normally have a green right arrow for vehicles entering the Convention Center (crossing the tracks). By pressing the manual crossing button, this simply changes the light to a red right arrow. No flashers/bells/gates.

SeaportMike wrote:If you look carefully above the green/white directional sign there is a set of traffic lights. The lights normally have a green right arrow for vehicles entering the Convention Center (crossing the tracks). By pressing the manual crossing button, this simply changes the light to a red right arrow. No flashers/bells/gates.

Aren't there regulations and codes that dictate what type of signals are required by the DOT? Is this even legally compliant?

Seaport:

I was also interested in your statement about the cruise terminal station which is very interesting. I don't see that mentioned anywhere.

Also, do you know about any progress with the Marine Terminal and it's possible rail connection?

I have suggested activation of the track to the Black Falcon Terminal several times in previous posts elsewhere on the Forum. It's satisfying to hear that it is now under serious consideration. IMHO a great opportunity for cruise ship passengers to transfer to trains almost almost dockside has been wasted for many years. If things are done right, they will be able to go directly to Back Bay hotels on DMUs or perhaps continue their journeys on "land cruise" trains out of Boston to elsewhere. The prospects are suddenly quite exciting.

While I don't know if it will be a part of the Track 61 re-activation to the Convention Center, a grant has been placed by the Boston redevelopment Authority in regards to overhauling the rest of track 61 past the Convention Center to the Cruise Terminal area and expanding the cruise terminal itself. Who knows if/when this will occur but the City is actively trying to bring freight and down the road passenger service down the rest of the line. Read below:

http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority ... Boston.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm beginning to wonder if this Track 61 plan is also why the MBTA is putting the Yard 61 layover out to bid. They'll need the yard for DMU storage for Track 61 and the Fairmount.

highgreen215 wrote:I have suggested activation of the track to the Black Falcon Terminal several times in previous posts elsewhere on the Forum. It's satisfying to hear that it is now under serious consideration. IMHO a great opportunity for cruise ship passengers to transfer to trains almost almost dockside has been wasted for many years. If things are done right, they will be able to go directly to Back Bay hotels on DMUs or perhaps continue their journeys on "land cruise" trains out of Boston to elsewhere. The prospects are suddenly quite exciting.

Most Black Falcon cruisers are day visitors only, making a stop in Boston on a longer cruise. Even those folks would appreciate a one seat ride to be able to get to Back Bay and the Fenway area.

boblothrope wrote: (snip) While there are certainly better technologies to get a train across quickly, even that would be a major step up for the Silver Line traffic light at D Street. A billion dollars and they still couldn't put in a simple loop detector to make the light change...

The technology is there but the willpower (from higher up) is not.

Also the technology has to deal with two signals, not just one at the bus crossing. If the timing of the second signal (east of the bus crossing) is not taken into account, then cars may be sitting on the bus crossing waiting for the second signal when bus crossing signal changes for the bus.

An extreme example of lack of willpower is in Baltimore, on Howard St. The higher ups there have hated trolleys for who knows how long. A hundred years? Actually money was spent on the needed technology which was never put into operation (at least as of 2005). It typically takes 20 minutes for the trolleys to go the 1-1/2 miles or so of in-street run.

Rbts Stn wrote:

highgreen215 wrote:I have suggested activation of the track to the Black Falcon Terminal several times in previous posts elsewhere on the Forum. It's satisfying to hear that it is now under serious consideration. IMHO a great opportunity for cruise ship passengers to transfer to trains almost almost dockside has been wasted for many years. If things are done right, they will be able to go directly to Back Bay hotels on DMUs or perhaps continue their journeys on "land cruise" trains out of Boston to elsewhere. The prospects are suddenly quite exciting.

Most Black Falcon cruisers are day visitors only, making a stop in Boston on a longer cruise. Even those folks would appreciate a one seat ride to be able to get to Back Bay and the Fenway area.

Aren't most of them those who sail on Norwegian's 7-day Bermuda cruise which is based in Boston? When I went on it back in '05 and '06 (when it was the tiny boat) a lot of people from out of the area also did a combo Boston vacation.

SM89 wrote:

Rbts Stn wrote:

highgreen215 wrote:I have suggested activation of the track to the Black Falcon Terminal several times in previous posts elsewhere on the Forum. It's satisfying to hear that it is now under serious consideration. IMHO a great opportunity for cruise ship passengers to transfer to trains almost almost dockside has been wasted for many years. If things are done right, they will be able to go directly to Back Bay hotels on DMUs or perhaps continue their journeys on "land cruise" trains out of Boston to elsewhere. The prospects are suddenly quite exciting.

Most Black Falcon cruisers are day visitors only, making a stop in Boston on a longer cruise. Even those folks would appreciate a one seat ride to be able to get to Back Bay and the Fenway area.

Aren't most of them those who sail on Norwegian's 7-day Bermuda cruise which is based in Boston? When I went on it back in '05 and '06 (when it was the tiny boat) a lot of people from out of the area also did a combo Boston vacation.

You surely have many of them, but a very large chunk either fly in and go right to the pier or are relatively local and drive/cab it to the pier or get dropped off by friends/family. I just checked the Black Falcon schedule, looks like around 65 cruises originating here (and some end here as well, some don't), and 50 or so making stops here. I'd wager you'd have more folks heading into the city from those 50 ships than from the 65, as pretty much everyone gets off the boat in a port visit, while a much smaller percentage do a combo add-on.

Think of the possibilities. How about fall foliage circle tours out of Boston? Take a cruise from Boston to Montreal and then a "tour train" through Vermont and Massachusetts back to Boston (or the other way around). This could be a real successful and popular option. Autumn tourism in Boston is huge.

Combo tours like this are very successful in Alaska and most cruise companies have their own affiliated rail cars. Don't know if the logistics make financial sense, but the Alaska tours end in September just when the New England fall tours would be starting. Transporting a few rail cars is possible. Also Rocky Mountaineer does a Trans-Continental itinerary in September. They partially use VIA but maybe they could bring one of their trainsets east just when it would be needed here.

Caveat about Black Falcon Terminal: public ownership of Track 61 ends right before the Drydock Ave. grade crossing at the first parking lot it passes through. All of the street- and parking lot-running track inside the industrial park is on private easements. So there is no possibility they'll ever be able to run dockside transfers, or go with any practicality beyond the BCEC stop. Those private parking lots have usage priority except for the would-be freight slots into the terminal. Which would be overnight jobs when the lots were closed. For liability purposes they would never think about going dockside, so cruise ship passengers would still need a short shuttle from the docks to transfer.

Nothing they can do about that. Those parking lots are full all day, and CSX never owned an inch inside the industrial park so it's beyond-scope of the state's new ROW purchase.

So I guess this is where the high level politics comes in.