Take the train to the Game! (Pat's Train)

Not quite sure how they would work this schedule wise; it's tough no matter how they do it. If they run a Franklin line or Attleboro line train over the other way, it will introduce a significant time delay (15 minutes or more) for the people on the south end of the service relative to direct service. Conversely, if they simply stop a train there and loop it back around, then they'd be taking seats south of there on one of the lines out of service. The only solution in my opinion would be to add an extra train on the Franklin line as far as where the stadium line cuts off; I believe the Attleboro is already close to capacity. That would get the train to the stadium without reducing service further south.

Robert Paniagua wrote:Max speed for the Framingham Secondary is forn Psgr 15 mph (28 km/h), 10mph freight (20 km/h), so this means the track on the Framingham Sec would have to be totally replaced to allow for 100 km/h (60mph) running.

Max speed for both pax & freight is 10 MPH on the Framingham Secondary.

Actually it would have to be 15mph for psgr (but you're likely right about 10mph Psgr, since this was more than 10 years ago), since Ive been on a train on that ine and we did slightly faster back then, but you're right, CSXT Engineer (your new profession ), all types of trains are 10mph including pax. So if this line is gonna be used by pax trains at all times, the Fram Sec track on this portion would have to be replaced entirely including the railbed

Just fyi, the Framingham Secondary used to be 25mph until a few years ago when the company decided to just reduce the speed permanently for the entire line as opposed to fixing the bad spots. Also, please don't mix me up with CSX Engineer98. I am an engineer, but no longer with CSXT. I just didn't change my screen-name on here.

CSX Conductor wrote:Just fyi, the Framingham Secondary used to be 25mph until a few years ago when the company decided to just reduce the speed permanently for the entire line as opposed to fixing the bad spots.

Oh I see, although the line could use some fixing to improve speeds so that Gillete Stadium Station (nee Kraftville) can be used at all times.

CSX Conductor wrote:Also, please don't mix me up with CSX Engineer98. I am an engineer, but no longer with CSXT. I just didn't change my screen-name on here.

Oh no, I didn't, sorry if I did I knew there was that user still around, but I knew it wasn't you. But you're still the guy to ask some railfan questions

I read on this board that extras were run Boston to Gillette for international soccer and NCAA lacrosse. I also read online that parking at Gillette costs $40. I also read online that Foxboro might be getting a dedicated, year round station, if the state proceeds with recommendations based on $130,000 feasibility studies. Therefore the 16,000 population city of Foxboro might get more train service than 9 days a year.

Any updates on the above? Can I get to Foxboro without spending $40 to park or $50 on a cab? Are there bus shuttles from the hotels and airports on soccer game days?

Trains have never be run to gilette for a soccer game, even when more people went to the brazil game than people go for a pats game (thousands of people went to stand outside 2 years ago).

Revs games have free parking. This includes international games against mexican teams (superliga).

And no, I dont believe we've gotten an update on the plan for daily service. But dont be mistaken, the krafts dont care about their soccer team, they want people for their poorly performing mall.

coming from Philly, DC, and NY and Pittsburgh experiences it is quite remarkable to me that Detroit and New England (despite the complexities of Boston's rail offerings) don't even have much in the way of stadium access by public transport. How does everybody just DRIVE to a stadium?!

Launcher wrote:coming from Philly, DC, and NY and Pittsburgh experiences it is quite remarkable to me that Detroit and New England (despite the complexities of Boston's rail offerings) don't even have much in the way of stadium access by public transport. How does everybody just DRIVE to a stadium?!

Because, in the Boston area, they have for 40 years.

They have talked about this kind of situation (permanent train to Schaefer/Sullivan/Foxboro/Gillette) with a permanent station since I was a kid. Now I am 35 years old. It makes perfect sense to do it... but they won't. Things in New England run at a snails pace and change comes very slowly. It's a hard headed atmoshpere. The Krafts also haven't made many friends in the state legislature for a variety of reasons. Their has been talk about moving the Revs to Sommerville but it seems to fall through. To me this would be a big win because the T already services this area.

Going to a Pats game is awful because instead of riding an environmentally friendly train, everyone is back up for hours on the ONE highway (RT 1) that goes to the game. It's a shame.

I rode the pats train in 2008 to the awful dolphins game. The train was extremely slow, 15mph as stated. The train had to make the turn on the diamond at Walpole and had to sit and wait to reverse down the line. The station is in great walking distance to Patriot Place though. The only possibility would be a train operating from South to Walpole then down the Providence.

Does anyone know if the T will run a train to the Pre-season Pat-saints game on Aug. 12th? I have tickets and was just wondering.

hoboblues75 wrote:Going to a Pats game is awful because instead of riding an environmentally friendly train, everyone is back up for hours on the ONE highway (RT 1) that goes to the game. It's a shame.

There already is service for all pats games, the upgrades associated with regular service wouldn't help game traffic in any way, unless they designed a way to have more than 2 trains at the station at once, but that seems impractically expensive to me.

I had an idea that seemed like it would help this depending on some things I have no idea about. At what capacity is the Franklin line at around peak hours? If it hhas enough capacity to run additional trains to down it to Foxborough and then on to Providence and hopefully by then the RI stations. The corridor seems to be at about 100% capacity at those times. By doing a run like this they could et additional trains to the Ri stations without having to extend all the Providence trains.

Also helping this idea would be that Walpole, Franklin, Mansfield and to some extent Attleboro all seem to have parking capacity issues. A Foxborough station station would help this since it has the massive gillete lot that is 90% unused on weekdays and would draw passengers from all of those stations.

Foxborough would also do something almost no MBTA stops outside of Boston does, draw passengers off-peak. The shopping, the hall, the movie theatre, the concert venue, and the occasional events at gillete would all draw decent numbers of people off-peak. That could increase the profitablity of mid-day trains already running the Providence and Franklin lines.

Looks like yes.

Schedule can be found here

http://mbta.com/riding_the_t/patriots/

jamesinclair wrote:Trains have never be run to gilette for a soccer game, even when more people went to the brazil game than people go for a pats game (thousands of people went to stand outside 2 years ago).

They ran a train to MLS Cup in 2002.