CSX/MBCR

I often read about problems between CSX trains and the MBCR trains.
What's the story? Does CSX own the tracks?
Why can't the MBCR/MBTA buy tracks from them?
Why install a commuter rail on freight tracks in the first place, especially since CSX seems to have priority?

helium wrote:I often read about problems between CSX trains and the MBCR trains.
What's the story? Does CSX own the tracks?
Why can't the MBCR/MBTA buy tracks from them?
Why install a commuter rail on freight tracks in the first place, especially since CSX seems to have priority?

CSX owns west of Framingham. Also, CSX dispatches and maintains from Back Bay to Framingham as well.

MBTA/Commonwealth could buy them, but CSXT has to be willing to sell. CSXT paid a LOT of money for their part of Conrail, the Boston Line included. CSXT will (very much rightly so) demand full market value for the line, which I suspect will probably be more than Mass. is willing to cough up right now. (This is all assuming that CSXT would be willing to part with the line for simply "fair market value." There are plenty of routes on their system where the commuter operator/government would have to offer an astronomical figure for CSXT to give up ownership, and hence control, of the lines. The RF&P in Virginia comes to mind immediately.)

Why is commuter rail running on freight tracks? There aren't many other railroads that go to Worcester from Boston.

Why is commuter rail running on freight tracks? There aren't many other railroads that go to Worcester from Boston.

Well, there's also that lone Amtrak Train 448/449 that also serves BOS asnd WOR to/from ALB. Another Passenger train for you west of Framingham.

Robert Paniagua wrote:Why is commuter rail running on freight tracks? There aren't many other railroads that go to Worcester from Boston.

Well, there's also that lone Amtrak Train 448/449 that also serves BOS asnd WOR to/from ALB. Another Passenger train for you west of Framingham.

Yes, but running on the same railroad. The only other way, I suppose, would have been when the Central Mass. line was still in -- B&M Main to Waltham, Central Mass. out to what, Clinton, and then down what's now GRS's Worcester line? A route only a foamer could love.

helium wrote:Why install a commuter rail on freight tracks in the first place, especially since CSX seems to have priority?

Many lines were freight before they were passenger routes (i.e. the B&A (Framingham CR Line) and the Old Colony before being rebuilt. Back in the day many railroads ran their own trains of both freight and passenger.

Don't sound so bothered, after-all many of our local freights are held for commuter rail trains and or Amtrak trains. It works both ways.

Freights share trackage with commuter trains on at least part of all MBTA/MBCR routes. The Worcester route gets the most attention because it has by far the heaviest freight traffic, and single track sections that magnify the problem, but you've also got significant freight traffic on the portions of the B&M/Guilford freight main that are shared with commuter traffic (Ayer-Fitchburg and Lowell Jct.-Haverhill). Plus there are local freights just about everywhere except the Plymouth Branch, the ex-B&M lines north of Salem, and the Needham line east of Needham Junction.

If you go back to the mid-twentieth century, the B&A used to handle even more movements than it does today, but there were four tracks between Boston and Framingham and double track (with some short sections of triple track) the rest of the way to Albany. And as others have noted, the Worcester service uses a busy freight line because there just ain't no other way of getting there, unless you're on a bus.

If you go back to the mid-twentieth century, the B&A used to handle even more movements than it does today, but there were four tracks between Boston and Framingham and double track (with some short sections of triple track) the rest of the way to Albany. And as others have noted, the Worcester service uses a busy freight line because there just ain't no other way of getting there, unless you're on a bus.

In the mid-20th century, B&A competitor New Haven was also a significant hauler of freight into the Boston/Framingham area via the Shoreline and other routes, coming from the car floats in NYC and Maybrook yard. But Shoreline freight was re-routed via Selkirk after PC takeover. And I suspect the B&M ran more freight movements from Mechanicville as well (I don't know this for a fact but there certainly was more manufacturing activity along the B&M back then). However, based on something I read on this list months ago, I'm not sure the B&A ran more freight movements than today's CSX, when you factor in 10 intermodal trains per day M-F (plus trash trains) into / out of Beacon Park. Clearly there were more long distance passenger movements running on all routes, except maybe the NH.