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Huh. I didn't realize there's already a RoW there. Following it, it looks like they're going to have to fight with a lot of abutters, and it's going to be a long and slow ride down a single track with lots of crossings.

Not all of it. And through a land swap with the Pike the plan for West Station includes layover tracks at Beacon Park. I thought West Station was going to be built by Harvard on its land, beginning in 2040. By the way, does anyone know what all those strange gray boxes sitting on flat cars are? The...

You can't find the line from Stoughton yet because it doesn't exist, whereas Phase I is just rehabilitation and upgrades of existing trackage for passenger service use. When/if the line from Stoughton gets built, it will be a completely new line (hence the discussion about the causeway though the sw...

Metrolink are ordering 12 x Tier 4 which will result in T2 MP36s being disposed of. There are other MP36 operators like Metra who might have designs on them, and it is a few years away at best either way. Isn't there some California law that says that if they replace older locomotives with new T4 c...

The FRA has various standards for track infrastructure and maintenance. Maintenance costs for the standard beyond Class 4 (80mph) probably has diminishing returns, especially for commuter railroads with frequent stops. The only reason why the corridor is maintained to Class 7 (Class 8 in Mansfield) ...

The two MP36s were black sheep as they had their own maintenance needs compared to the rest of the fleet, and at the time, the MBTA wanted more but couldn't get any (there were none on the secondary market, and MPI couldn't build any more as they were not EPA Tier 3 compliant). MP40s were an option ...

The MBTA's official reporting mark for interchange is MBTX. The various reporting marks you see were applied prior to MBTX becoming officially registered, and the various equipment with the older lettering was never relettered as they do not get interchanged. If you look hard enough, some equipment ...

Yes. On the London tube, their escalators operate at a higher speed than ours (if you step on at walking speed, it's fine. If you stop at the threshold, look, and step on, you may lose your balance), and because of that, there's 5+ steps worth of landing on each side. Escalators have improved over t...

As for Readville, if it is indeed a clearance route (which I question because the sides of the bridge don't appear to offer much more clearance than the platform edge, but satellite maps don't have sufficient resolution to be able to tell for sure), then they can build a full length high level platf...

Those exist to center the wheels over the two rails to minimize the odds of the flanges from picking the joints. The wheels can deviate side to side (or else the wheels wouldn't make it around curves) Conversely, If you ever ride a commuter train at speed over a switch, you'll feel the train jolt in...

In the Boston Globe article, GM Eng says that the fix will involve removing the tie plates, filling in the holes with dowels, and reinstalling the tie plates in the correct positions. An unconfirmed source told me that the rails are 55.5" in gauge, which is half an inch out of tolerance, and an...

Readville is a looong way out from South Station for still being inside Boston--about as far out as Winchester and Waltham are from North Station. Just because in greater Boston all rail transit that's on the national rail network consists of fairly infrequent diesel push-pull trains using a mix of...

I'm of the opinion that center platforms at the existing three Newton stations are not practical. Replacing Mass Pike bridges would cost more than the extra elevators required for side platforms. I'm sure full-high platforms would be required, with platform heaters to melt snow and full awning cove...

So that Boston Railway Terminal Alco S3 #0409 that was over by the BCEC that was owned by George Marsh (before the City of Boston illegally scrapped it in November of 2013) was never in service in the area?

Newtonville can probably be fixed by putting in a center platform, and moving the southernmost track to where the platform is now. The bridge piers are in the way, but Newtonville's platform is excessively long, and a Boston Landing sized platform would totally fit with plenty of space for the track...