container facility in southie

NAFTA went into effect in 1994, so it was like icing on the good- bye cake. A lot of distribution moved out of Boston, to say University ave Westwood area, and other places. Stop and Shop had warehouses in S Boston that blended into Readville I think, not sure when, but now they are in Freetown anyway. Maersk lines stopped calling in Boston in 2000 , barging the containers from other ports . C Town navy base has condos , and the Big Dig skewed the crap out of the area so much i can barely figure out where I am. I once went to a wedding reception at the Seaport Hotel ( which I think was built where the A&P fish house was ) , and upon leaving stone sober , no drinkee , only found my way out by heading for the bright lights of A street & Gillette, ( and i think its only a matter of time before that plant is cashed in for development dollars and re-located to East Bumflux Shake&bakeland somewhere ). Its just a shame. But i consider myself lucky to have seen, and been a small , very small part of the industry there in the glory days. America only works when America works ! Gears must turn , emails just cant do it all.

Probably the most important change in international container transport to affect ports' positions and future prospects is the post-Panamax-sized vessel. Their cost of ownership and operation makes it imperative that they are kept moving , not sitting in port, hence minimizing the ports of call on any sailing. From this, those ports that offer the lowest inland transportation costs in aggregate by distribution of where the traffic is orginating/terminating and with competitive service follows. When you think of the Northeast, NY/NJ makes sense for high-volume container traffic: it's closer to both the freight which will be trucked and railed in aggregate than, say, Boston, no matter what infrastructure the port has to offer. Despite what politicians or planners, with their intentions and use of the public's money can offer, it's not likely going to change this economic picture. What a port like Boston (or Portland, Davisville, New Haven, Bridgeport, New London, etc.) can realistically hope for is container traffic from a niche-carrier or traffic that wants to move to/from regional points, which in turn does not generate sizable, if any, rail traffic. And, in a situation where demand is outstripping capacity at NY/NJ, I would imagine rail-generating traffic would more likely head to Norfolk, possibly even Baltimore, instead of Boston, for example.

Will the utilization of track 61 for the Seaport/Back bay DMU service negate or enhance the chances of freight service returning to the area?

for a variety of reasons, there will be no rail container traffic from south boston piers. also, the tunnel water clearance blocks any similar shiptraffic in the inner harbor. newark has captured all the business now and in the future. massport should refrain from any promotion. ken patrick

NRGeep wrote:Will the utilization of track 61 for the Seaport/Back bay DMU service negate or enhance the chances of freight service returning to the area?

I would say enhance, given they're installing diamonds for a straight shot between T61 and Widdett Circle. This removes the need to shoot down the Fairmount and down to Walpole, then up the Framingham 2nd. They can just jog straight out to Framingham down the Worcester Line under cover of night.

BostonUrbEx wrote:

NRGeep wrote:Will the utilization of track 61 for the Seaport/Back bay DMU service negate or enhance the chances of freight service returning to the area?

I would say enhance, given they're installing diamonds for a straight shot between T61 and Widdett Circle. This removes the need to shoot down the Fairmount and down to Walpole, then up the Framingham 2nd. They can just jog straight out to Framingham down the Worcester Line under cover of night.

Yep. This is 100% of the track work for the straight Fairmount connection that Massport specced in its formal proposal for Track 61 freight. This ad hoc passenger proposal borrowed the engineering for that part-and-parcel. So if they do it, the infrastructure is ready for the Readville routing and only awaits the state holding up its end of the bargain on developing Marine Terminal and attracting business. There won't be an extra dime needed to be spent on the connection. Only the track spur inside the industrial park that goes to the north end of the facility.

does anyone at massport consider rail rates when proposing these flights of fantasy? do they consider eliminating mbta per car charges for freight traffic over their lines? tracks do not guarantee economic moves. i can't think of a more convoluted move than from track 61. costs? out-of-sight. i guess we have another example of folk developing plans that have no chance of becoming economically vibrant.
do you think anyone at massport has spent time watching the new jersey ship-truck-train interactions on staten island? the geographic hurdles make any water-rail interaction an economic loser. ken patrick

KEN PATRICK wrote:does anyone at massport consider rail rates when proposing these flights of fantasy? do they consider eliminating mbta per car charges for freight traffic over their lines? tracks do not guarantee economic moves. i can't think of a more convoluted move than from track 61. costs? out-of-sight. i guess we have another example of folk developing plans that have no chance of becoming economically vibrant.
do you think anyone at massport has spent time watching the new jersey ship-truck-train interactions on staten island? the geographic hurdles make any water-rail interaction an economic loser. ken patrick

Why don't you ask Massport that question?

Look, this is not complicated. They see enough upside there to apply for a TIGER grant expanding the Marine Terminal facility and adding a spur off Track 61 to a yard on the north side of the parcel for doing 20-car loads. CSX says, "Sure...we'll serve it if you can get some traffic."

That's it. How MUCH traffic...whether Massport is spending its resources wisely...rates and blah blah blah? Only Massport knows what it sees for demand or has a feel for its odds of pulling it off. But it obviously sees enough to pursue the funding for it. And that's why we talk about it...they are gonna do the infrastructure upgrades. What runs on it...irrelevant to this discussion. They are gonna build the thing.


If you want justification for the wisdom of that, ask Massport through public instead of carpet-bombing RR.net with this week after week after week. The posters here don't bloody know, and to my knowledge there is no one in Massport involved with this project posting here to field those questions. Stop trying to shake this place down for answers we don't have. If you're such an industry insider, don't you have other insider sources you can turn to???

Nah, he has everything figured out.

Like, what-EVER! (note: need a "rolleyes" smiley for this forum)

unfortunately our state freight rail approach is long on hiring largely inexperienced but 'connected' people and short on addressing realities. what we have here is a 'field of dreams'. many of the posts herein clearly state that would be in error yet a new person was hired to develop the port. why? because massport needs projects to justify it's staffing. it's easy to create projects. easy to throw money at a new 'railyard'. impossible to overcome the hurdle of non-competiveness.
we no longer have an efficient rail network that would support container traffic. no amount of 'diamonds' can overcome mbta operations and the proposed routing is rail-tedious . of course csxt would state the obvious. more to the point would be csxt agreeing to a fixed per container rate irrespective of commodity. ken patrick

KEN PATRICK wrote:unfortunately our state freight rail approach is long on hiring largely inexperienced but 'connected' people and short on addressing realities.

Have you noticed their approach on everything else?

KEN PATRICK wrote:we no longer have an efficient rail network that would support container traffic.

We no longer have anything so we should all just crawl under a rock and spend the rest of our days in solitude.

Your same old nonsense is beyond tired, give it a rest! The world will continue to spin.

Too bad Eimskip has left Everett for Portland. I would think this rather light operation could have at least got things going. Small container trains could have gone all the way to the International Cargo Port at the very end of Track 61 and could have easily navigated the reverse moves around Cove.

Not much investment would have been necessary to at least get things activated and Eimskip would have direct CSX service to huge markets in North America.

Eimskip had almost direct rail access in Everett with the line to Schitnzers running between their dock and PFS. They could have loaded directly from ship to railcar with little to no effort.

It is/would be cheaper, with better service, to truck the containers to/from CSX's Worcester intermodal terminal.