CSX Fitchburg Secondary Discussion

Maybe CWR later?

Not sure about that stretch, but I noticed CWR laid alongside the tracks East of the Rt 62/S. Meadow road crossing west of Clinton.

East of Clinton, I saw a couple people in vests standing around at the crossing at the Bolton Road/Lancaster road intersection., which had been recently been paved. There was a pile of stick rail there as well.

FatNoah wrote: ↑Sat Aug 03, 2024 2:55 pm

Maybe CWR later?

Not sure about that stretch, but I noticed CWR laid alongside the tracks East of the Rt 62/S. Meadow road crossing west of Clinton.

East of Clinton, I saw a couple people in vests standing around at the crossing at the Bolton Road/Lancaster road intersection., which had been recently been paved. There was a pile of stick rail there as well.

That section of CWR at Route 62 has been there for a while. I suspect that will be used for rebuilding the grade crossing there. When the rail train was through earlier this year, most (if not all) of the grade crossings had a section or two of rail dropped. Panels were built off to the side and then moved into place during the rebuilding of the respective grade crossing. The tough part with that location is the crossing is much longer than typical and there isn't any place to build that large of a track panel section off to the side. I can remember that crossing being rebuilt at least twice over the years. One of the times the old track and ties were removed and the new was installed directly in place. Another time, the old track was removed and at the same time a second crew was building a couple of track panels right on the closed road and they were then moved into place. Option two had the road closed for less time.

There has been a lot of activity at the Lancaster Road area not counting the rebuild of the crossing. Each morning there are least a couple of CSX vehicles up to as many as eight staging there. Another good size load of ties has been dropped there in the last couple of days. That pile of stick rail is the old that has been removed. There is also a good size pile of old tie plates from the old rail. They have been pretty aggressive in the number of ties that they replaced.

My pure speculation is the goal would be to raise the speed from Framingham to Clinton and leave Clinton to Leominster at 10mph with a lot of new ties installed. To me this would allow for daily service for the Leominster waste facility as was suggested in this thread that the customer was looking for. If the plan is to do new rail to Leominster, I would think that one more construction season would be needed.

Interesting speculation about the different speed rated sections. One question I have is, since several of the piles of old stick rail are in locations where there has not been CWR laid, did they replace the old worn stick rail with slightly newer (maybe heavier?) stick rail?

loaded herzog ballast cars moving north through Clinton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yQP3vtCUlA

I happened to be there too to check out the bridge work. About 30 stone cars

I still cant figure out what yhe plan is for the bridge
Perhaps build a new parallel bridge and remove the old one????

I think they are going to raise it again.

F74265A wrote: ↑Fri Aug 09, 2024 5:06 pm loaded herzog ballast cars moving north through Clinton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yQP3vtCUlA

24 more loaded ballast cars north through Southhborough c tee (MP QBU 30.5) at 1750 (5:50 pm) on Sunday, August 11th.

Route 62 crossing is in the process of being rebuilt. Crossing closed and detours in place. Looks like some of that new ballast has been dropped in that area and heading north.

new crossing in at sterling rd, lancaster from this video that I think was made on Aug 14

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4w7jsFPkhg

looks like the ballast has been improved as well.
i will be surprised if cwr is not extended next year from clinton to leominster

From what I saw yesterday, all the crossings between Clinton and Leominster have been redone. I would guess they would want to fix up the track in the Leominster yard (run-around) pretty soon as its in very poor shape.

Could you tell if the used heavy rail for the crossings? If so, that argues for a cwr upgrade coming, perhaps next construction season or even this fall

F74265A wrote: ↑Wed Aug 28, 2024 11:35 am Could you tell if the used heavy rail for the crossings? If so, that argues for a cwr upgrade coming, perhaps next construction season or even this fall

It is all heavy rail - 115lb. When the rail train came through earlier this year there were lengths drop at each crossing for panels to be built. All the track that was torn out of the crossings that I have seen have also been heavy rail. Some of the removed sections of track are still sitting at some of the crossing locations.

see WML discussion for big rumors for the future of the Ag branch .........

Looks to me like there is room to add a track or two at the Framingham yard and add back track at the north end of the yard should the reroute of road trains via Clinton occur