CR Winter Schedules Effective 12/14/2015

Effective Monday, December 14, 2015, new Commuter Rail Winter Schedules will go into effect. All lines have designated Severe Weather trains which will not operate when reduced service for severe weather is announced. Only two lines have changes to the train schedule. The Fitchburg Line has added two new trains and the Worcester Line has modifications to two trains. All other trains remain the same as they are today.

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The new (snow-cancellable) Fitchburg train 450 is very much appreciated as it fills an hour late rush-hour gap.

great. Anything that helps me plan is great. They probably should do something similar for the height of slippery rail season.

Wow, they couldn't have made 223 leave Boston 10 minutes later to reduce the conflict with 688? The incompetency... it hurts.

New #447 that turns for #450 is also well-welcomed. Reverse commuters to Waltham and Brandeis with before-8 starts not have a real option.

I can hardly wait to see more trains running on the Haverhill Line once the double-track project from WJ to Andover St. is fully built out.

new blog post: Thoughts on the new Framingham-Worcester 'winter' schedule

http://dbperry.weebly.com/blog/thoughts ... w-schedule" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A golden opportunity missed on the Fitchburg line. A Littleton turn has been added, running 10 minutes in front of a Fitchburg train. They could have implemented the Fitchburg reverse commute train instead with the first, or even second Littleton turn, but did not. Guess we will wait until spring to see that train, which would also plug the over 3 hour inbound morning gap.

ST214 wrote:A golden opportunity missed on the Fitchburg line. A Littleton turn has been added, running 10 minutes in front of a Fitchburg train. They could have implemented the Fitchburg reverse commute train instead with the first, or even second Littleton turn, but did not. Guess we will wait until spring to see that train, which would also plug the over 3 hour inbound morning gap.

Not sure what schedule you are comparing, but the two new trains on the Fitchburg Line are at 6:30am outbound to Littleton - just over an hour earlier than the existing 7:32am departure, and at 8:20am inbound from Littleton, which has a train 30mins on one side and 35mins on the other. The Littleton turn you reference has always existed, it got moved closer to the Fitchburg train over a year ago due to the single-tracking caused by the construction project.

Considering there were no other changes made to this schedule or any other North Side schedules after the original "big-change" schedules were pulled, it is likely this train pair was added under political direction. I believe one of the goals of the Fitchburg project was to provide reverse commute to Littleton, so that could explain it.

Trinnau wrote:

ST214 wrote:A golden opportunity missed on the Fitchburg line. A Littleton turn has been added, running 10 minutes in front of a Fitchburg train. They could have implemented the Fitchburg reverse commute train instead with the first, or even second Littleton turn, but did not. Guess we will wait until spring to see that train, which would also plug the over 3 hour inbound morning gap.

Not sure what schedule you are comparing, but the two new trains on the Fitchburg Line are at 6:30am outbound to Littleton - just over an hour earlier than the existing 7:32am departure, and at 8:20am inbound from Littleton, which has a train 30mins on one side and 35mins on the other. The Littleton turn you reference has always existed, it got moved closer to the Fitchburg train over a year ago due to the single-tracking caused by the construction project.

Considering there were no other changes made to this schedule or any other North Side schedules after the original "big-change" schedules were pulled, it is likely this train pair was added under political direction. I believe one of the goals of the Fitchburg project was to provide reverse commute to Littleton, so that could explain it.

I guess I never realized they were that close. Honestly, I do not pay much attention to the Littleton trains, as they are no use to me.

One of the big things that was supposed to come out of these improvements was a reverse commute train to Fitchburg. Even if added under political direction, it could have been extended to Fitchburg. Move the first outbound a little earlier and move the other two a little earlier so you don't get too far off the existing schedule and the return from Fitchburg can pick up the third slot east of Littleton.

Just my two cents....

ST214 wrote: I guess I never realized they were that close. Honestly, I do not pay much attention to the Littleton trains, as they are no use to me.

One of the big things that was supposed to come out of these improvements was a reverse commute train to Fitchburg. Even if added under political direction, it could have been extended to Fitchburg. Move the first outbound a little earlier and move the other two a little earlier so you don't get too far off the existing schedule and the return from Fitchburg can pick up the third slot east of Littleton.

Just my two cents....

The canceled 12-14-15 schedule had a reverse commute to Fitchburg. 401 departed BON at 7:09, went through Littleton at 8:06, and arrived in Fitchburg at 8:35 (which is about the ideal time for a single Fitchburg reverse commute train). Note that the adopted 12-14-15 schedules made no changes to any existing trains, after the blowback over the canceled schedules.

Against the current schedule, 401 would meet 402 between Belmont and Porter, meet 404 between Waltham and Waverly, meet 406 between Lincoln and Concord, and meet 408 between West Concord and South Acton. With the current trackwork, the 406 and 408 meets would probably be on single track until the second bridge track is in, and the 404 meet has too low of a margin of error for the Waltham single track, so having a Fitchburg reverse commute which could run reliably requires changing a lot of the rest of the schedule (which is what they did, which indicates to me political pressure to have a Fitchburg reverse commute).

The response to the canceled Fitchburg schedule seems to have been markedly more positive/less negative than the other new schedules, so one might think they'd implement the canceled Fitchburg schedule while leaving the other schedules alone, but the Fitchburg changes might not have been compatible with the other current North Side schedules which were retained (I'm thinking mainly of "sunny-day" equipment turns).

When the Concord second track is restored, 401 will probably be introduced for real.