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I'll admit I haven't been spending much time on this site lately, and my project has had to take a back burner multiple times in favor of other stuff in my life, but I never stopped working on it entirelyy and have learned a lot since starting on this. I now know a lot more about PHP and JavaScript ...

Fletcher's Granite has at least two wooden B&M cabooses, one is at the Westford quarry and is used as an office for quarry workers. It's interior is completely stripped out so the cupola basically just makes a nice skylight. The other that I know of is a monitor-top at the Milford NH quarry, it'...

Why don't they order the next version of cars with interconnecting ends and just run longer trains? If the trains stopped with a few cars on either end inside the tunnel, passengers who are going for a longer ride could move to these cars while people on short trips could stay in the cars that meet ...

How is the data actually calculated? Is it using data from the signal system to detect the location of each train? Is it running based on average time from fixed locations such as each station?

Here's the Google Maps view of the yard: +42° 30' 39.90", -70° 53' 50.33" By the looks of this USGS topographic map from 1944 (it's at the bottom, and it's a big image), there were a lot more tracks in there back in the day. As it is that paved area with the trailers could make a great tra...

I hiked some of this line last spring, the wooden trestle mentioned before is all burned out and would be unlikely to pass structural inspections for even a trail. Further north from there there's 1+ foot thick trees growing between the rails for a short stretch. Then there's about a mile and a half...

The times I've ridden coach I typically just eat the microwaved food in the lounge car. There's even been times when I'm in a sleeper and am just not hungry during meal time and I've skipped on meals that were included in my ticket in favor of a microwaved hot dog or mini pizza when I am hungry late...

I just heard the MBTA northside dispatcher declare that the Fitchburg line is out of service between Waltham and South Acton.

I'm a big fan of the Wuppertal, but they need more support than a concrete pad for a support. You pour a concrete pad for two two-ton cars in a garage, you dig deep to support hundreds of tons of steel and concrete. Plus look at this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/infactoweb/7301110678/ Would you re...

What if we go a little outside the box here. Look at the Suspension railways of Memphis or Wuppertal. I'm sure that with some modern roller-coaster technology it wouldn't be out of the question to build a suspension railway that can run down the median. Rather than burying the rails into the street,...

What if some local historical societies and clubs were to do some fundraising and purchase the naming rights themselves? What if Government Center was renamed "Scollay Under" for a month or so? We could take this a step further by paying for the shrink wrapping on the cars, imagine a commu...

Could it be profitable for railroads to transport Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) in bulk quantities? Could a single LNG tanker carry the same amount of energy as a single coal hopper?

And they refer to Ethanol as the "bomb train".

How is it that people get all bent out of shape over what is essentially rubbing alcohol when Chlorine gas, Propane, Gasoline, etc are already shipped through thousands of little towns along the tracks throughout the country? Do people not look forward anymore as the placarded tank cars are passing ...

I've always wondered, when the tracks are on an embankment or fill, does the ROW automatically extend to the edges of the embankment, or does it still follow the 50' standard?

Now that's the tastiest switcher I ever hoyd.