CSX Readville Yard Boston

Does anyone have any insight into the Morse Street bridge/Certainteed at this point?

When it initially got Storrowed, CSX was pretty adamant that it would be repaired, even telling the press how much extra clearance the new bridge would have. As noted previously, the bridge replacement and Certainteed resuming service are codependent, and CSX may prefer to do neither at the end of the day unfortunately. Certainteed hadnt actually received a car since summer 2021 i think.

The old bridge has sat on the ROW for almost a year now. As someone who works in the immediate area, I would greatly prefer if they moved back to rail from some of the trucking. They are definitely seeing 50+ eighteen-wheelers per day if you combine the raw materials inbound and finished shingles outbound. With that volume they must transload a bunch of the shingles to rail somewhere like mansfield or taunton anyways…


Bonus photo of current conditions of the switch(es) from Norwood central commuter platform

Did CSX actually say anything? I remember hearing secondhand that they were raising the clearance of the bridge, but I don't remember anyone from CSX saying anything.

I thought I saw somewhere that Certainteed had a place in Hopedale where they receive their shipments, but I could be mistaken.

I wonder what's going on between CSX and Certainteed. Nothing has come through the STB as far as I know, but if they aren't abandoning it, why is CSX doddling? I hate to see more truck traffic, and the last segment of this line get abandoned, but the rest of the ROW from South Walpole down to Rhode Island is being converted into the Metacomet Greenway so maybe the same will happen up there.

CERTAINTEED used to get tanker loads liquid asphalt to make roof shingles.,and hopper carloads.They would get about 10 cars a week.
TRUCKS bring finished building products.,steel,precast concrete,lumber etc. on flatbeds to New England and there is a surplus of truckers looking for backhauls.Certain teed is one of the few manufacturing companies left in the Boston area.With the price of electricity, real estate taxes, etc I am surprised they are still here.I have a commercial property SW of Boston and the real estate tax is at twice the rate of residential housing.Over 50% of town taxes go for Schools and businesses have no schoolchildren.They are driving businesses out of the state.
The state should step up and pay for a new bridge.Certainteed has a very unusual diamond, for the track that the tank cars used due to track curvature!

The bridge was hit by a TESTRA concrete truck and CSX probably got an insurance check in the 6 figure $100,000+

Interesting that the volume was so low. I always thought the little diamond and track car were used for boxcars loaded with outbound shingles, interesting to learn it was actaully inbound tanks.

Yes it was a Tresca Bros cement mixer that knocked over the bridge… ironic since they have been a player in MA freight rail here and there themselves.

I think yall are right, theres no direct quote from CSX, just vague secondhand reporting in the news articles from october 2023. And i think its probably going to be a state IRAP grant if anything ever gets that bridge rebuilt. Doesnt seem super likely.

I guess I’ll have to get used to the truck traffic. They only pack 10 or 12 pallets of shingles on each full size flatbed going outbound, so they send out dozens every day. It’s a little maddening to think of how few boxcars they'd need to move the same amount of shingles.

Readville was packed with boxes when i passed last week. Many were the old, smaller boxcars. Do they transload some paper in Readville?

It seems that Readville has lost most of its business over the last few years. Nothing goes north to Boston anymore. I think there is one business left on the Stoughton Branch (was that the place that had the car roll away onto the mainline a few years ago?). Home Depot is all that's left south in the Westwood Industrial Park. Does anything go down the NEC? I don't think so.

So Readville sadly is dying. But wait. I hear someone has been pretty successful operating a growing transload facility in the old Stop & Shop facility. Is that where the new boxcar business is going? Checking Google maps over the years there looks like an additional third track has been added between the buildings, a siding has been rehabilitated at the bottom of the yard, and Walker gets its tank cars there since being ejected from the Inner Belt by the Greenline Extension service facility.

So am I right thinking this new transload business is helping keep Readville alive? Does anyone know what is being transloaded there. Whatever they are doing there it's great to see it is succeeding.

Hard to figure out where all these cars are going:



Apparently they even have their own Trackmobile at the old Stop & Shop distribution center:



Note new tracks:

https://abextrans.com/

Our Readville facility, located within 10 miles of the Port of Boston, features direct rail service from the CSX. Our siding allows for daily placement of 22-24 railcars per day, five days per week. We are the premier CSX rail served facility in Eastern Massachusetts.

Interesting. Glad they are pulling this off. I still remember back in the Menino days when truck drivers were being harassed and fined for using the Neponset Valley Parkway as a way the NIMBYS tried to kill any plans to run such a truck centric operation out of that facility. It was a very antagonistic situation that could have potentially destroyed any future use of that property.

Most of the box cars you see are loaded with Corono beer I think from Mexico.It is hard to believe they get about 10 cars of beer every day, but they cover most of New England and part of upstate NY.There is also a Home Depot distribution center in Westwood near Amtrak station.They get about 5 cars per day, mostly lumber loads and boxcars that could contain anything.
There is a lumber distributor in Stoughton,about 20 years ago a car with a load of lumber rolled out of their facility onto the Stoughton Branch,went downhill thru Canton center about 3 miles to the NEC at CANTON JCT AND AMAZINGLY the switch was lined for an MBTA commuter train to go to Stoughton that was stopped and the lumber car rolled into it.I would think that was the dispatcher lined the switch for Stoughton,the signal system would show a red signal.Maybe someone knows more on this.The lumber car sat in Readville yard for years.I am not sure how the investigation turned out.
Another incident in Readviile recently ,was a gang from the Bronx NYC WERE robbing box cars of corona beer in NJ,PA, AND HIT READVILLE.They actually drove stolen rental trucks over the tracks and would load up the whole truck with beer.I think the story was in The NY Times AND NY POST,POSSIBLY IN TRAINS NEWSWIRE,.

About 4 years ago while working at Southampton Street, around 1am I saw a CSX engine and 2 boxcars going over the 93 bridge and towards Commuter rail S&I. Any idea where these cars would be going?

Those would have been little plate c reefers for the cold storage building . That was the last customer east of Readville .

regarding the Lumber car rolling away from Cohenno Lumber siding on the Stoughton Branch.

loaded lumber car, it was common practice for the guys to move cars around with the forklifts, this loaded car got away from them, being fully loaded, and the derail protecting the Stoughton Branch single track being far out dated, rolled over/broke the derail. The SB is downhill heading North to C Jct, and then E on the NEC. A scheduled Stoughton line train was operating West on the NEC, path lined for the SB. Lumber car rolling free followed the "path". Yes there was intermittent shunting of the signal system but by the time the Dspr and approaching train realized what was happening in true time, it was too late to do anything.

The engineer smashed his face off the control stand, lost most of teeth and never came back to operating trains after this incident. The cndr and AC returned to work, the cndr still is on the roster today

https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/journ ... 527332007/

Between Home Depot and ABEX they have anchor customers for sure. I wonder if theres been any potential customers interested in reactivating other westwood sidings over the years.

On another note that story about the loaded centerbeam flying downhill is wild!

dhs12 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 20, 2024 2:45 pm Between Home Depot and ABEX they have anchor customers for sure. I wonder if theres been any potential customers interested in reactivating other westwood sidings over the years.

There was a resurrection of a couple of sidings in Westwood for a new transload business way back in 2005 before the area's big transformation. It was cool and surprising to see any tracks restored back then. Unfortunately this didn't last too long. There are a few potential dormant sidings within reach though.

Local in the Westwood Industrial Park passes the switch that leads to the new operation north of Harvard Street (looking south):



It's the brick building on the right that receives the materials. It is unloaded by fork lift from the "main" (even though there is a track adjacent to the building), since access to both sides of the center beam flats is necessary: