Cape Cod Branch Connector

[craven]

Culvert looks shallow enough for the bike enthusiasts to pass at low tide.

Maybe post a sign to that affect !!

[Falmouth Secondary to Otis]

Do you think the culvert replacement took into thought the possible connection of the bike trails and left enough room for a bridge to piggyback the rail line?

The culvert replacement / causeway work was for the RR line only with no additional work done for any future bike trail consideration. If the bike trail ever does reach this area it would require the construction of several long bridge's as the Monk's park area is the beginning of the Pocasset wetlands. This area is designated by MassDEP as a area of critical concern which has extensive regulations and they don't allow the filling in of wetlands. It would be cost prohibitive to build bridges through this area but MassDOT may decide to build them anyways, if MassDEP allows it. It will be approximately 15 to 20 years into the future for the Rail with trail path to even possibly get to the Monk's park area, depending on funding and approval from MassDOT / MassDEP, even though local bike path activists still want the tracks removed. However the Town of Bourne Transportation committee is moving forward with design plans / building the bike path parallel to the tracks as they are working in the world of reality, knowing that the tracks are not going to be removed. The first 1/2 mile section from Canal junction to the Gray Gables crossing may be possibly constructed in 2 years subject to funding / permitting / MassDOT approval as there are no wetlands in this section, and as long as it doesn't interfere with RR operations. The Falmouth Secondary line is in the planning stages for rehabilitation and the Otis Industrial track per the 2018 Rail plan is under study for rehabilitation as well, so RR operations will continue well into the future no matter what bike path activists think ! As you can see per the photo there is no land along the RR tracks in the Pocasset wetlands to build a bike path with expensive bridges being the only option if it does happen.

[Falmouth Secondary to Otis]

Looks like it's the dead of winter slow period on the Falmouth secondary line out to Otis UCRTS as Mass Coastal appears to be delivering / picking up C&D cars only once a week on Wednesday since the beginning of January. Mass Coastal 2006 did a run this morning with no empties to deliver and picked up 3 C&D cars to ship off Cape with a Mass Coastal HyRail truck running ahead of it checking the line & crossings. Haven't seen any more work being done on the line as it will probably resume when Spring comes.

[malbojah]

Looks like it's the dead of winter slow period on the Falmouth secondary line out to Otis UCRTS as Mass Coastal appears to be delivering / picking up C&D cars only once a week on Wednesday since the beginning of January.

Sorry about the lack of traffic, should pick up the beginning of March when house building season begins in earnest.

[John Smythe]

It would be great if certain towns & cities around where I live on the South Shore of Boston would stop fighting over proposed plans by my Town of Holbrook to allow a waste transfer station to be built along the existing CSX rail line. It would be a state of the art facility & handle 1,000 tons a day. Trucks would come to the facility, unload & after materials were sorted out, gondolas would be filled, covered for shipment to perhaps SEMASS, some to a huge landfill in Ohio or other locations. Our adjacent towns are fighting with us on flood zones, setback from the nearest home, traffic, even how long the train would be moving back & forth at a nearby railroad crossing even though the nightly train isn't in that area until after 11 PM, there is virtually little or no traffic at that hour, I've witnessed it when I go down to that area to wait for the freight.
The traffic concern is a joke, dozens of trucks carting dumpsters, rubbish packers, etc, traveling to and from the towns that are giving us all the hassle all cross those tracks each day, one might ask why aren't those towns complaining about that issue? I believe that when you do the math, each dumpster is about 15 tons, a rubbish packer can hold up to 20 tons, that is about 50 trucks per day, 10 hours a day equals half a dozen trucks per hour, one every 10-12 minutes? These towns that are fighting us would like to have everyone believing that there will be long lines like at a gas station during a gas shortage. Baloney!!

Did I forget the town of Braintree that is giving us the most trouble has a large transfer station & for every ton of waste that goes into the building the town get a cut of the action in dollars. Of course they don't want trucks coming to our town as they will loose out on the money grab. This is just the tip of the iceberg, some residents from that town think they can dictate to the railroad what time the CSX freight train operates even though it goes to a rail yard in that town to switch cars going to a soap making plant in Quincy. When they come to a open meeting they have never heard of the FRA / MBTA sets the clip on what times these trains can operate on those tracks, not residents. Never heard so many stupid things come out of peoples mouths. There are 2 other transfer stations on the Middleboro Line the safest time for the CSX train to doing all the switching is at night after the last commuter rail train has made it's run.

[malbojah]

Snip

. It would be a state of the art facility & handle 1,000 tons a day. Trucks would come to the facility, unload & after materials were sorted out, gondolas would be filled, covered for shipment to perhaps SEMASS, some to a huge landfill in Ohio or other locations. There are 2 other transfer stations on the Middleboro Line the safest time for the CSX train to doing all the switching is at night after the last commuter rail train has made it's run.

Semass can't even handle the 20 cars that come from Yarmouth, and that's only about 5-600 tons per day in the summer.

[John Smythe]

I was under the impression that the SEMASS plant in Rochester was capable of handling more tonnage per day than what the cape trash train delivers.

I'm glad to learn that Mass DOT will be re-habing the rails from the split to Yarmouth & Falmouth. It would be nice to be able to remove perhaps hundreds of motor vehicles that clog up the local Route #28 heading into Falmouth to take the Ferry to M/V. The rail line sort of terminates right where The Steamship Authority has it's super large parking lot located.

[Falmouth Secondary to Otis]

The Falmouth Secondary line ends in North Falmouth turns left and continues as the Otis Industrial track out to service Joint Base Cape Cod & the UCRTS C&D transfer station. The rails into downtown Falmouth were removed quite some time ago for the Shining Sea bike path, thanks to Falmouth Rep Eric Turkington who everyone can thank for the road congestion they have to sit in today because of that poor decision.

[John Smythe]

You are correct, sorry about that. I was looking at older Google maps which showed the rails ending behind the Ferry overflow parking lot. What kind of a joke of a politician would pull a stunt like that? I'd say that as a result of many years working for various elected officials that " The Fix Was In " on that fiasco. I wonder what happened to all the monies made by scrapping all that 107 lb rail? Certainly other higher up officials could reverse what has happened & rehab the line right back to it's former self.

[Falmouth Secondary to Otis]

Originally it was to be a Rail with trail concept and the rails still do exist beneath the trees / underbrush next to the bike path from the Falmouth station up to the Steamship parking lot. Then a amendment was slipped in the budget under the radar by Turkington to remove the rails and do only a bike path. There are other post's related to that issue on Mass Coastal and the Cape flyer discussion threads. It would be ideal to bring the Rails back to Falmouth station as now that whole area is a transportation hub servicing the Steamship Authority / Bus connections and downtown. But it would have to be a Rail with trail configuration as initially envisioned or Falmouth would fight tooth and nail to keep the bike path and reject any return of Rail service.

[BandA]

Since the rails were removed against common sense, it should go to the back of the line, or at least back of the line for state money. Still, should be analyzed. I assume rail + trail means single track operation?

[malbojah]

I was under the impression that the SEMASS plant in Rochester was capable of handling more tonnage per day than what the cape trash train delivers

They can, but proccessing time is faster to have msw brought in by truck / trailer. If the building is empty, they can unload (my guestimate) 400+ tons per hour. Rail cars are around 50-60 tons loaded and take longer to unload

[Falmouth Secondary to Otis]

Since the rails were removed against common sense, it should go to the back of the line, or at least back of the line for state money. Still, should be analyzed. I assume rail + trail means single track operation?

As far as I know there are no current or future State plans in the works to restore Rail service to Falmouth station and if there were it would be a long time waiting for that to happen. Yes, Rail + trail would still be single track operation as the Falmouth secondary line was always single track in the past, except in front of North Falmouth station and downtown Falmouth Station where run around sidings were located. As far as the existing active remaining Falmouth secondary line, Bourne bike path activists were put in there place last year when they were told the Rail line isn't going anywhere and will have to settle on trying to build a Rail + trail from Canal junction to North Falmouth so it will connect to the Shining sea bike path to Woods Hole. Hopefully this year more track & crossing improvements on the Falmouth Secondary will take place as listed on the State Rail plan and eventually the Otis Industrial track as well.

[John Smythe]

[quote="Falmouth Secondary to Otis"]Originally it was to be a Rail with trail concept and the rails still do exist beneath the trees / underbrush next to the bike path from the Falmouth station up to the Steamship parking lot. Then a amendment was slipped in the budget under the radar by Turkington to remove the rails and do only a bike path. There are other post's related to that issue on Mass Coastal and the Cape flyer discussion threads. It would be ideal to bring the Rails back to Falmouth station as now that whole area is a transportation hub servicing the Steamship Authority / Bus connections and downtown. But it would have to be a Rail with trail configuration as initially envisioned or Falmouth would fight tooth and nail to keep the bike path and reject any return of Rail service.


That's an old political trick. Slip some small piece of some proposal into the bill somewhere, the legislature's vote Yes or No on the main body of the bill as written / proposed & then it becomes law. Then afterwards when it's fine print is really studied it's then realized that Oops!!

[Falmouth Secondary to Otis]

Looks like it's the dead of winter slow period on the Falmouth secondary line out to Otis UCRTS as Mass Coastal appears to be delivering / picking up C&D cars only once a week on Wednesday since the beginning of January.

Sorry about the lack of traffic, should pick up the beginning of March when house building season begins in earnest.

C&D business picking up as Mass Coastal delivered 5 empties to Otis and picked up 4 loads to ship off Cape today. Shipments have changed to Fridays since the beginning of March. Schedule probably will change as construction activity on the Cohasset Narrows RR bridge reconstruction in Buzzards Bay is starting to pickup.