CSX Framingham Secondary Discussion

As for B733, not sure if it runs fridays or not as I haven’t been seeing or hearing them around in the early mornings and mid afternoonish

Not sure what the status of B733 is but B731 now has been arriving at readville between 4-5pm consistently. B733 I last spotted at S Walpole at 2:45pm last time which was on a Thursday. Not sure why i don’t usually catch it at foxboro.

Does anyone know what the longest consist that runs on the Fram Secondary nowadays?

CSX train hit a vehicle at North Main St. crossing in Sherborn last night, police say injuries were "not life threating." Story from WCVB-TV----- https://www.wcvb.com/article/cargo-trai ... d/38969100

On a side note why do media people these days refer to freight trains as "cargo trains?"

neman3 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 03, 2022 9:56 am CSX train hit a vehicle at North Main St. crossing in Sherborn last night, police say injuries were "not life threating." Story from WCVB-TV----- https://www.wcvb.com/article/cargo-trai ... d/38969100

On a side note why do media people these days refer to freight trains as "cargo trains?"

They grew up watching Thomas the Tank Engine hauling "cargo"...

Cargo trains- containers, perhaps, like on cargo ships?

Tallguy wrote: ↑Thu Sep 16, 2021 10:30 pm Does anyone know what the longest consist that runs on the Fram Secondary nowadays?

B725 is, and has always been, the longest freight that operates on the Framingham Secondary. Travels from Framingham to Attleboro to interchange with B726 (cape and OC freight traffic) Middleboro- Attleboro. Last I saw, has 2 SD40-2's and a GP40-2 in the middle and varies anywhere from 20-90 cars

B733 is based out of Walpole, usually gets underway out of Walpole after 7am and works the Mansfield area, the Chocolate and/or Zayers. Their return to Walpole depends on work load and NEC mainline traffic windows

B731 based out of Readville, has been following train #707 to Walpole and return trip varies on work in Framingham and traffic windows on the Franklin branch

A lot of the freight trains they got rid of in framingham sadly. All I ever see now and days is b731 after the 1:40pm commuter rail trains leave framingham and around the 5pm hour, I see it at readville. I never see b722 and b725 anymore as well as q437. I wish they would bring the freight back like it used to be.

On Thursday 3/10/22, B725 arrived Nevins Yard at around 0900 shortly after the road train to Worcester/Selkirk departed west with trash loads, tanks, and other misc carloads. B725 power was 3 SD40s and crew had to get creative about stashing the consist in the small crowded yard.

small derailment in framingham on Sunday 10/23/22.Railfan had a live video showing the derailment on Boston news TV.Train was coming out of line to old GM plant at the B and A main line at Framingham MBTA station.5 cars and engine were on the ground blocking route 135.Does anyone know why they would use this track that dead ends at old auto transloading facility one mile south of derailment site.

It is being used for car storage.

Does anyone know how they interchange cars on the attleboro turn, since the switch is facing the wrong way on NEC in attleboro.The train runs in the middle of the night and there are 4 mainline tracks on NEC with mbta using the outside tracks.also,what radio frequency do they use through Walpole and Mansfield. THANKS

copcars wrote: ↑Mon Dec 05, 2022 8:18 am Does anyone know how they interchange cars on the attleboro turn, since the switch is facing the wrong way on NEC in attleboro.The train runs in the middle of the night and there are 4 mainline tracks on NEC with mbta using the outside tracks.also,what radio frequency do they use through Walpole and Mansfield. THANKS

To make it even more interesting, there is an industrial park north of the Mansfield switch which has to be served too:



Here's recording of that move at the beginning of this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMn0v-9bMcc&t=78s

From the things I've read and seen on YouTube the interchange is made around the Taunton area sometimes called a "live meet" as the two companies show up at the same time to interchange cars.

Here is a video of that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM9qyLubbDg

The CSX locals from Middleboro and Framingham usually swap trains at Attleboro using the eastbound platform track and also the long passing siding from the tower that heads all the way to the former Texas Instruments plant site off Haggerty Highway.

I know that the track/signals between Walpole and Foxboro saw some upgrades within the past few years as part of the MBTA testing out Foxboro-Boston commuter service, but I haven't been able to find any documentation of what was done. The last track chart or ETT I have for the line is from early 2017, and (looking at the tracks in Google Earth) there have clearly been some significant changes since then (a new interlocking south of Walpole, a full runaround track at Foxboro, an extension of the Mansfield yard lead, at the very least). Can anyone point me to a source (or tell me directly) what all of the changes were?

Thanks,

Joshua