Railroad Forums 

  • Framingham/Worcester Line Questions

  • Discussion relating to commuter rail, light rail, and subway operations of the MBTA.
Discussion relating to commuter rail, light rail, and subway operations of the MBTA.

Moderators: sery2831, CRail

 #1077947  by jboutiet
 
frrc wrote:ROMAR is moving it's operations to Hopedale, on the Grafton and Upton. Freight will be off loaded at Hopedale, and trucked to Boston and other locations. They estimate around 60 truck loads per day in/out of Hopedale. Operations are planned to be in place by October 2012. Should make traffic on the MA pike more interesting :(

JoeF
That's something like one additional truck every 10 minutes. Not really a traffic impact.
 #1078089  by diburning
 
frrc wrote:
diburning wrote:Beacon Park still has, and probably will still have two freight customers after it closes. Houghton Chemical, which receives tank cars, located on the southeastern end of the yard over by the engine pit, and Romar Transportation, which receives hi-cube box cars at the building, and centerbeam flats in the parking lot, located east of the yard, accessed by a branch that begins on the northwestern end of the yard. Romar Transportation also receives containers unloaded at Beacon Park, which after the closure of Beacon Park would probably have them trucked from Westboro or Worcester.
ROMAR is moving it's operations to Hopedale, on the Grafton and Upton. Freight will be off loaded at Hopedale, and trucked to Boston and other locations. They estimate around 60 truck loads per day in/out of Hopedale. Operations are planned to be in place by October 2012. Should make traffic on the MA pike more interesting :(

JoeF
Romar only gets 2-3 cars max a day anyway so the G+U won't get much of an upswing in traffic. I'm assuming Romar's intermodal service will be unloaded and trucked out of Worcester?
 #1078524  by dbperry
 
P527, the 5:35 PM departure from South Station, now makes an annoying stop at Wellesley Hills (it (or the evening express) used to be express to West Natick, way back in the day; since April, it was express to Natick). None of the conductors know why (or they won't say). I'm guessing it has something to do with the at-grade pedestrian crossing - is the thought that making the train stop there makes the crossing safer? Anybody know what's up with this schedule change? It was implemented ~early August, I think.

Dave
 #1078662  by MBTA F40PH-2C 1050
 
dbperry wrote:P527, the 5:35 PM departure from South Station, now makes an annoying stop at Wellesley Hills (it (or the evening express) used to be express to West Natick, way back in the day; since April, it was express to Natick). None of the conductors know why (or they won't say). I'm guessing it has something to do with the at-grade pedestrian crossing - is the thought that making the train stop there makes the crossing safer? Anybody know what's up with this schedule change? It was implemented ~early August, I think.

Dave
simple answer my friend....politics
 #1091335  by Komarovsky
 
In the past week I've noticed some new speed restrictions on the line. There is now a 5mph restriction in the Worcester yard, and a 15mph restriction going through Natick. I don't see any work crews at Natick and the work being done at Worcester is on the freight yard portion, fairly far from the main line tracks. Anyone know the official reason for these new restrictions?
 #1091590  by Backshophoss
 
Possibly some "parting gifts" from CSX,MBCR is now maintaning the ROW and signals since Oct 2,with CSX still
dispatching the route untill the CP's can be "cut over" to MBCR control.
 #1095338  by CSX Conductor
 
Komarovsky wrote:In the past week I've noticed some new speed restrictions on the line. There is now a 5mph restriction in the Worcester yard, and a 15mph restriction going through Natick. I don't see any work crews at Natick and the work being done at Worcester is on the freight yard portion, fairly far from the main line tracks. Anyone know the official reason for these new restrictions?
After trackwork is done speed restrictions are usually left in place until a certain amount of tonnage has passed over the affected track.
 #1384905  by dbperry
 
Posting this here instead of starting a new thread.

Recently updated my blog with the story behind the reason that outbound rush hour afternoon trains run "wrong track" between Wellesley Farms and West Natick.

http://dbperry.weebly.com/blog/why-do-f ... tch-tracks" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 #1384980  by johnpbarlow
 
WatertownCarBarn wrote:Are those old ties going to be picked up, or are they rot in place, like some places?
Are you referring to Pan Am where rotting ties help anchor the ballast along the Downeaster RoW? :wink:
 #1386185  by Komarovsky
 
I mentioned the track work speed restrictions in the delays thread but I figured we could have a more in depth discussion here.

Today there are 2 big speed restrictions on the Worcester line, one between the Weston switch and Framingham on track two and one between Framingham and Southboro just past the station.

The Framingham->Southboro one seems to be a remnant of the tie replacement, but for about a week it went away from Ashland to Southboro after they reballasted and tamped and now it's back and longer than before!

The Weston -> Framingham makes less sense to me. IIRC the tie replacement is only for track 1, so why have a restriction on track 2 suddenly?
 #1386211  by nomis
 
I believe you are mixing up [or being told in simple terms on the intercom] signal restrictions with speed restrictions between CP 11 & CP 21 ... There is a nightly congo line occurring on track 2 for rush hour, as well as an artifical bottleneck at CP 22 - CP 24 as the 4th Iron is barricaded with MOW equipment.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 38