Customers in Boston-proper

[GP40MC1118]

Remember that GRS sold Yard 7 for the North Point project years ago and also somewhere
along the line, gave up Yard 8. PAR's hands are tied now. The sad fact is that a perfectly
usable right-of-way that is the Willey Track is being used for a bike path (another inexplicable
powerful lobby) and the ill-planned location for the GLX MW yard (crazy flyovers, ad-nausea).

The Western Route is Plate E only and there's new restrictions at Sullivan Square excluding
Plate F's.

I foresee the LA jobs either working the Lowell mainline a few days and turning at Winchester,
other days coming to Somerville via Reading (along with DOBO). As long as LA2 doesn't have
Plate F's, they could conceivably come Lowell mainline to Tower A like DOBO could.

It is breathtaking what is about to happen...

D

[GP40MC1118]

GLX stands for the MBTA Green Line Extension from Lechmere to West Medford.

D

[The EGE]

Green Line Extension. The Green Line is branching off just before the soon-to-be retired Lechmere station, with a new elevated station across the street. It will then parallel Route 28 (along an old freight siding ROW), before splitting on a viaduct over the Fitchburg Line tracks. One branch will follow the Fitchburg Line to Union Square; the other will follow the Lowell Line to College Avenue (Tufts).

For a variety of reasons - many of them related to how projects get federal funding (which is paying for much of it, and the feds have a definite bias towards shiny things) and Somerville's very justified feelings of being ignored (the project has been in the works essentially since 1945, legally mandated since 1990, and is going to miss the legally-required deadline of December 31, 2014 by as much as six years) - the project is rather overwrought. The stations are palatial, and the project is massively over budget. A lot of that isn't inherently bad; a lot of the over-budget is due to other public works projects like the Community Path and some long-overdue flood mitigation from a long-buried cove being pulled into the project, and the palatial stations aren't near as expensive as moving the hundreds and hundreds of undocumented utilities crossing the ROW. But it certainly looks a tad ridiculous, hence why a number of people here have started calling it GLXcess.

The biggest issue is the maintenance facility. The Green Line needs a northside maintenance facility badly; it'll help reliability through the Central Subway, take a load off Riverside for load-balancing, and support the larger fleet for the GLX. Originally it was to lie parallel to Route 28, on the site of an old B&M rail yard. Perfect, no? But a few well-connected artists seeking to make a profit off the old industrial building they own nearby (despite the T making sound and vibration mitigation a large part of the project) managed to make that impossible and forced the T to go for a secondary site, the M.S. Walker location off 3rd Avenue, instead. Unfortunately, due to that inferior location and some truly stupid planning ignoring freight needs, the construction of the carhouse will cut off Plate F boxcar clearances "around the horn" (from the Lowell Line to the Eastern Route) and make other moves much more difficult.

I believe the ROW along New Washington Street could potentially be rebuilt for regular freight use to mitigate some of those problems, but I'm not privy to all the details.

[GP40MC1118]

Again, rehabbing the Yard 9/10 lead doesn't fit in with Somerville's vision to
remake this part of town. I got to find that link to the "vision-quest"!

D

[hh660]

Thanks for the explanation and overview,
S

[GP40MC1118]

Yard 8 closure now expected to be by May 16th.

D

[BostonUrbEx]

One thing I don't quite follow here... there were three options: Mirror H, Yard 8, and Option L. Both Yard 8 and Option L would have given the same problems for freight ops and the artists were opposed to Yard 8. Wouldn't Mirror H have been the obvious best choice?


Also, new job: LA-5. They were added specifically to run LA to BO and back to LA once Yard 8 is gone.

[BostonUrbEx]

Acquired some info which came directly from the GLX project team:

- The Yard 10 Lead will be rehabilitated with expanded capacity (double track) north of the Zero New Washington Street Dog Park

- New Hampshire Main Line Track 1 will be lowered to maintain Plate F clearance


The only thing about that Yard 10 plan is that still can't fit your average DOBO when they're in the clear and waiting for main lines to clear out. Might not even suit LA-5 if/when CSX gives up the Everett run.

[GP40MC1118]

Funny thing is LA5 has yet to come to Somerville! Only Billerica Shop.

D

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

One thing I don't quite follow here... there were three options: Mirror H, Yard 8, and Option L. Both Yard 8 and Option L would have given the same problems for freight ops and the artists were opposed to Yard 8. Wouldn't Mirror H have been the obvious best choice?


Also, new job: LA-5. They were added specifically to run LA to BO and back to LA once Yard 8 is gone.

Yard 8 was the MBTA's preferred site, but the Brickbottomites threw flaming dog poo at that plan over the proximity to Cobble Hill Apartments and it never stood a chance. Local Legislators were kicking sand on that one too. Mirror H was violently opposed by the Northpoint development because it was in their backyard, and that Cambridge and their legislators stirring the pot. So the Option L facility tucked in on industrial land insulated from the neighborhood ended up preferred. With all the pot-stirring from the local Legislature reps more or less forcing the T's hands on that one. The fact that the city is actually losing tax revenue because of Walker getting the boot did not exactly rate high on the list of concerns because "¡TRAIN BAD!" except when "¡WE WANT SERVICE!". Apparently trolleys just magically appear out of thin air onto the mainline track in full revenue service.

This was all indicative of the ridiculously disproportionate fear and influence the Brickbottomites seem to wield over the local politicians. And I don't get it because most of the projects that actually put breathing people in the neighborhood haven't been built yet. So how did they amass such a mob of clout to wag the dog when their numbers are yet-to-come?


BTW...Somerville Community Path is NOT funded or designed through the Innerbelt yet. They had enough trouble getting funding for the much more critical path extension along the NH Main, so until that's built they're not sweating the segment past Washington St. station. In fact, the city is running gunning double-barrels at MassHighway to tear down the McGrath Highway eyesore first and tame that road to better pedestrian friendliness into Lechmere before tackling the last past leg. It makes sense...that's going to be the least-utilized portion of path until the asphalt hellscape currently separating Brickbottom from Lechmere gets tamed enough for there to be more pedestrian activity period in the area. And with money tight enough for the path that's the correct priority sequence for them.


I just don't know what's so difficult about building the GLX overpass to not sever the around-the-horn access that'll actually store a full-size freight consist without complicated reverses or grade crossings? Yes, the GLX leads pinch the storage space. But seems like such an utterly senseless and easy/inexpensive-to-solve oversight to just cut the damn track. This just seems like either a manufactured crisis, or some project manager was so spacey they outright forgot to consider that and should get fired because that's probably not the only the only important thing they spaced on.

[newpylong]

I would think putting the north side back in at Montvale would be a must with Yard 8 going bye bye and there being a lapse before #1 undercut and Yard 10 reactivation.

[BostonUrbEx]

I would think putting the north side back in at Montvale would be a must with Yard 8 going bye bye and there being a lapse before #1 undercut and Yard 10 reactivation.

They plan to use Yard 21 (two tracks next to Sullivan Sq station) during the lapse. PAR "might" improve Yard 21. But if they get along well enough without improvements, they'll probably just leave it.

[B&M 1227]

I would think putting the north side back in at Montvale would be a must with Yard 8 going bye bye and there being a lapse before #1 undercut and Yard 10 reactivation.

A few years ago there was talk of using Montvale as a combined Lowell/Boston yard. With a customer at Tighe now, and potential for offloading on both sets of tracks there, it seems unlikely that that' option will be reconsidered. LA-whatever (there's 6 locals now! better than 2 a few years ago) left Boston with 47 or so cars earlier this week, so yard 10/21 would appear to be better fits.

[newpylong]

I'm talking just for turning easier at Tighe when they will lose all access to Somerville off the NH Division temporarily.

[GP40MC1118]

There really is no Yard 21 anymore. Only tracks left are the 3rd & 4th Irons
from FX towards old Yard 21. Not sure how far they go into the foiliage beyond
Sullivan Square.

A correction to an earlier post - GLX isn't taking 10 tracks away from commuter
rail or PAR. So far I can account for the impending closure of: Paint Track,
Willey Track, Cut Yard (to be temporarily severed for a few months for construction).

The unintended consequences though are the lack of tracks to store MW equipment.
No room at West Cambridge, Beacon Park is supposedly tied up in legal issues, the
CR eastbound & westbound tracks at 3rd Ave behind BET are rapidly filling up.
Possible use might be the passing siding on the Grand Jct, but daytime access will be
restricted due to, yep, GLX activity at Swift!

And complicating matters will be Amtrak Downeaster storage once the PAR trackwork
on District #2 starts. Like last summer, 2 sets will have to stay in Boston. If anyone
noticed, the Tuttle Track at Tower A was cleared of the MW cars last week and it
see a Downeaster set hanging out there.

Yikes!

D