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  • Redo Of Rt 109 Railroad Crossing in Medfield

  • Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New England
Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New England

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 #1357546  by charding
 
http://walpole.wickedlocal.com/article/ ... /151117245" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - was checking my hometown paper, Walpole Times, and have included article of the redo of the Rt 109 railroad crossing in Medfield - noticed that the Mass Central Railroad was mentioned - doesn't this line belong to the CSX? Or have a missed something.
 #1357558  by charding
 
I'd forgotten that the MBTA had taken ownership…but could it be that Mass Central is going to take over freight traffic on the line from the CSX? Also interesting to see the G&U role. A picture of the future?
 #1357695  by F-line to Dudley via Park
 
Dick H wrote:Well, the new G&U seems to be a can-do outfit. Maybe they will be able to drum up some new customers in that area.
There's none to be had. North of Franklin Industrial Track to Walpole Jct. it's nearly all residential with a lot of conservation land abutting the ROW. There's nary an industrial-zoned property anywhere close to the ROW. I count maybe 1 or 2, and they aren't the types of tenants that would ever do rail. Don't think this stretch ever had much on-line business dating back at least to WWII, but because there was (and still sorta is) lots down by Franklin Jct. and up the Milford Branch it remained an important connection. I doubt G&U, if it gets those rights, is going to use them much since North Grafton is the be-all/end-all for CSX interchanging. But since the plan all along has been to hand over the biz on the whole Milford Branch + Franklin Industrial it is a convenient connection if North Grafton is over-full on a given day or the origin of the goods is coming to/from Readville or the South Coast and not Framingham where Walpole Yard is oft-used as staging area for the CSX locals. It's definitely good flexibility to have that link even if it's likely to be seldom-used.

Makes me wonder if Priscoli's aiming to take another run at part ownership of Mass Coastal, since that would make Walpole Yard the more attractive pickup spot vs. N. Grafton. Wouldn't be a repeat of his last attempt since big Iowa Pacific is now MC's owner, but IP being out-of-town makes a local minority partner who's hands-on a potentially attractive prospect for them. (BTW...the T and CSX outsourcing dispatching to MC explicitly takes advantage of IP's ability to run dispatch cheaply from a back-office system halfway across the country with little need to waste MC staff's time. That's why they're involved here; they pick up a lot of this type of low-rent outsourcing when they've got a shortline presence in the regional vicinity.)



BTW...the S.M. Lorusso & Sons quarry along the Franklin Line in eyeshot of Walpole Station still has a long-dormant siding connected to Walpole Yard on the Framingham Secondary. Because of that it will always be captive to CSX via the yard and not be a G&U prospect.

And I very much doubt G&U is going to have any upside seeking rights to Medfield Jct. and displacing nearly-dead Bay Colony on the Millis Industrial. If/when Bay Colony packs it in the state can very easily use its Framingham Sec. ownership to set up a team track at W. Mill St. or Ice House Rd. so CSX can serve Tresca direct. The GAF plant's demolition and cleanup on the branch at the yard probably isn't going to net a new industrial customer in Millis since it's surrounded by residential and big box outlet stores. Whoever replaces the plant is probably going to be another sprawl-y retail tenant. The yard sandwiched between the outlet stores on 109 and the plant ends up useless for setting up a transload or other yard-centric operation without the industrial abutter allowing them adequate street access. And the 70,000 square ft. ex-GAF warehouse at the end of the line is a low-margin outpost if that's the last available property. I could see that warehouse becoming another set of outlet stores if Millis wants to exploit itself as a destination for that sort of thing. Besides, G&U can hit Route 109 very easily from Hopedale or Milford Yard. G&U is can-do, but they're not blind; when the property isn't there to do something, it isn't there.