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I'm posting this at 11:25 a.m. on Tuesday, February 24. As of 9:21 this morning the MBTA posted as a Red Line update that the Alewife Garage is "at capacity" and closed to incoming vehicles. That notice was still up a minute ago. So was one posted last Friday saying that the credit/debit c...

Keolis and the MBTA Commuter Rail haven't even tried to run train 400, the first inbound one on the Fitchburg Line, in weeks. This morning train 402 was very late to Concord -- at one point the electric sign at the station blamed "heavy ridership" among other factors -- and headed eastward...

"Unsentimental Commute" (Tune: "Sentimental Journey") (written aboard Fitchburg Line train 402, operated by Keolis for the MBTA Commuter Rail, December 4, 2014, with the last four lines added a little later) Goodness me! It's just a little train set: Only five one-level cars. So...

Re this morning's commute from West Concord: A train of all single-level coaches -- I think only five of them -- ran nonstop westbound about 7:30. About 7:40 the "Super Express" (nonstop from South Acton to Porter) ran through eastbound, about 25 minutes late. Sometime before 8:00 the set ...

Following a serious accident in the very early 1900's caused in part by confusion of similar station names, the Boston & Maine renamed a lot of stations. That's why the old station on the Conway branch at Center Ossipee, New Hampshire, for instance, is Mountainview and what had been North [?] Os...

The train hit the car where the tracks -- only one in use at present -- cross Massachusetts Avenue, which is Route 111, not Route 110, in West Acton, between Windsor and Spruce Streets. I was inside one of the closest buildings to the scene at the time.

The Railroad Press is now also to be published by White River Productions. I believe this was announced a bit before their acquisition of Railroad Model Craftsman , Railfan & Railroad and the books published by Carstens. I think it's likely that all of these magazines may become harder to find ...

A correction to my August 17 posting: I got a better look at the South Acton station construction site this past weekend. Only one platform has been installed. I counted 24 precast sections, and I'll revise my estimate of their length to about 40' each.

As of this morning, Sunday, August 17, 2014, precast concrete sections of the center and, I think, south platforms of the South Acton station had been installed. I'd seen a crane there yesterday, which A crane took the sections off flatbed trucks and positioned. I think each sections is about 35 fee...

The electronic sign at Concord station stated this morning (Tuesday, July 29) that new schedules for the Fitchburg line would go into effect next Monday, August 4, and advised us to go to http://www.mbta.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for the schedule. I'd say it's more...

I had intended to take Train 406, the second inbound Fitchburg Route train, yesterday (Monday, June 2), but when I got to Concord depot about 6:45 the electronic sign was indicating that it would arrive in 35 minutes -- half an hour late. I returned to my car and drove in on Route 2 to the Alewife g...

Foxtrot, here are some suggestions related to Albany Union station. Books on the D&H and the New York Central have photos of it. There are a lot of views of the area back of the station in Morning Sun Books' Trackside in the Albany N.Y. Gateway 1949-74 with Gerrit Bruins . An article on the Huds...

I barely made it onto Train 406 at Concord this morning. Shortly after leaving Kendal Green, our train stopped again. After a few minutes we were told, first over the PA and then by a crewman in person, that the dispatcher had stopped us and we'd probably be there at least 45 minutes, because it wou...

Hudson Yard was the D&H yard where that line's track met that of the Wilkes-Barre Connecting Railroad, owned jointly by the D&H and the Pennsylvania, which extended to the PRR's Buttonwood Yard. If I'm remembering what I've read correctly, D&H freights went to Buttonwood and PRR freights...

When I got on the first inbound train on the Fitchburg line this morning at Concord it was 24 minutes late. The weather was very cold this morning, and I came very close to giving up and driving to Alewife. There was no announcement as to the reason for the delay between Concord and Porter Square in...