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How did downtown Peabody fare this week? Their flooding issues around the canal that runs next to the tracks have long been the stuff of infamy. Peabody too needs major sustained investment on climate change mitigation going forward despite being further inland of Salem Harbor, as storm surge events...

I wrote a thing about replacing the MHSL with a Red Line extension. It borrows a lot of ideas from this discussion, but fleshes everything out a bit more and gets all the ideas in one place. I'd love to get responses from all of you, especially regarding cost estimates. https://medium.com/@skyqrose...

So...that means we're going to see the study that proves the traffic modeling that the GJ and northside terminal district can handle the service levels for this shuttle any day now, because it " is getting upgraded". Right? Can anyone give an approximate date for when those studies expecte...

The "new" ]North Station has unused tracks that were never put in service That doesn't mean Tower A and the drawbridges have the capacity, or that reassigning trains to different platforms is going to work without increasing the congestion at Tower A. You need to have a full study with tr...

We already have that. It's called the 64 bus between Oak Sq. and Kendall, it runs every 13 minutes at peak and 25 minutes off-peak, and it takes about 10 minutes to get between Boston Landing and Central Square. Rail scheduling's not going to improve upon that if all you're looking to do is dump peo...

North Station has just as bad capacity issues, so adding Worcester Line trains would compound a bad problem. D That too. WOR-BON Study was light enough a schedule to fit within the limits of NS terminal district, but it's a very different matter at this shuttle proposal's frequencies. There isn't s...

I think the recent delaying of West Station until 2040 throws some significant amount of cold water on any attempts to expedite passenger use of the Grand Junction. For one thing, the shuttle concept announced by Gov. Patrick on his 2024 Indigo Lines map (a.k.a. un-serious overture to the Internatio...

Gotta deal with the NIMBY's first. It's still a little too early to be talking about this thing as a locked-n'-loaded reality. The other variable to consider: any new transload spot in CT is, on the merits, sloppy seconds to the most ideally located spot for such activity: Cedar Hill Yard. The long ...

Northborough/I-290 via Framingham was studied by Boston MPO in 2002, though for whatever reason they don't have the PDF of that study archived on their site...just the bibliography. I haven't even been able to find it scanned on Google Books yet like a lot of other old studies in the State Transport...

Wouldn't Siemens doing maintenance in MBTA territory be something of a potential trojan horse for them doing maintenance on some things they make that don't run on diesel...? It's unavoidable in this case because these are IDOT-owned locos just here for a short-term lease. They still have to be mai...

Figure also that City of Lawrence is pretty much tailor-made by the preexisting distribution of MVRTA bus routes to eventually be bookended with two stations: the current one, and a future "South Lawrence" by the I-495/MA 28 interchange at the other end of S. Union St. Think of that as the...

The latest generation of energy recapture tech for regenerative braking works better with a hybridized mix of blended + dynamic brakes in order to recoup the maximum amount of braking energy as recirculated electricity for traction and/or HEP (with all the associated fuel/emissions savings that enta...

So a train can sit for 13 years and still be rail worthy? I know it's a low speed tow, but I guess the trucks, wheels, bearings, etc. are still good unless they had to be replaced for the move. Worst-case a piece of rusted equipment that hasn't moved in eons can be switched onto shop trucks to stag...

Does Siemens currently build a dual mode AC/Diesel for anyone e? If so what are the specifications? They bid a Charger-based dual for NYSDOT's Request for Information 4 years ago. The only technical hurdle they cited for making a conventional QSK-95 prime mover coexist with an equally capable DC E-...

There appears to be an intact ROW for a long-abandoned connection between those two lines in Clinton, but it would still require trains to change ends, and you may end up having to spend the SGR $$ saved on the Worcester Main on the Fitchburg Secondary instead. I don't know what the traffic potenti...