fsdemasi wrote:Hi,
Has anyone noticed the old Alco switcher in South Boston at the Boston Terminal West first street yard has gone? Also the Boston Convention Center plans expansion, with renderings depicting air rights over the Boston Terminal Running track, the South Boston Haul Road, and the yard leading to track 61. Its too bad the yard has not been used in years so that it would provide the Boston Marine Industrial Park and the Sea Port build out with a local bulk transload as in the past. This would save truck drays from outside Boston as far as the Westborough CSX Bulk Translaod. The air rights may kill any chance for the state to lease out the yard now that it owns the yard and ROW.
Any thoughts?
Massport's plans for Marine Terminal have a yard with capacity for 20 daily cars being constructed on the north end of the site, with a spur off Track 61 serving it. They don't have much detail in the plans about expansion space for >20 cars to track with port growth, but the study does a size comparison with Beacon Park of the acreage available so it's sort of assumed they can add to the storage over time. They
definitely weren't in any way suggesting BP as a comparison for ultimate port yard size, but that was their metaphor for saying "there's a crapload of land here to do all kinds of stuff with!".
With that going online there'll never be a need for yard space in the middle of the line by the W. 1st turnout or Cypher St. yard. That's too wide open a place to leave unattended freight cars during the day, and since CSX would only be going there overnight to pick up there's the issue of how Marine Terminal would get the overflow cars down Track 61 on their own power. Trackmobiles and a tiny yard switcher are fine inside the port, but they'd have to become their own RR or become an appendage to state-owned Fore River RR to shunt stuff down the branch-proper. Especially with a passenger schedule potentially running there.
Hopefully they can find at least 1 or 2 online customers on that old spur at W. 1st/Cypher. The track that old Alco was sitting on has decent grade separation to tap as far down as E St. in an underutilized area that will always be industrial use even if the BCEC swallows everything on the other side of Cypher.
