Framingham/Worcester Line Questions

That's the same reason why people tend to ride the Riverside line to Woodland, where they transfer to a MWRTA bus to Framingham. It's about the same time, but costs less, and operates more often. (Not to mention that MWRTA accepts Charlie Cards which makes it a lot easier as there's no ticket purchasing involved.

New blog post regarding construction update for Framingham-Worcester:

http://framwormbta.weebly.com/blog/summ ... ion-update" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Lots of pictures and videos!

Holy customer service batman!

I made an operational suggestion and they implemented it! P512 won't be held for the start of construction any longer.

Details here:
http://framwormbta.weebly.com/blog/brea ... mplemented" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Technical details are easy:
For most of June, there has been work on track 1 between CP 11 and CP 21. Dispatchers handed over that stretch to the work crew starting at 9 AM, after the last official inbound "rush hour" train cleared CP 11.

This created a stretch of 10 miles of single track, when both outbound P507 and inbound P512 were supposed to be in that stretch. Under normal schedule conditions, outbound P507 reaches CP 11 a few minutes before P512 reaches CP 21. In what I guess is simply a matter of 'first come, first served," P507 would get the single track first, delaying P512 15-20 minutes. I've never understood that decision - under the old schedule, the P507 equivalent time train would have 56 passengers while the P512 equivalent time train would have 237 passengers. Shouldn't P512 always have been getting priority since it has more passengers? i made that comment back in June but not sure it got any traction.

Now we got a great resolution for the P512 passengers!

dbperry wrote: under the old schedule, the P507 equivalent time train would have 56 passengers while the P512 equivalent time train would have 237 passengers. Shouldn't P512 always have been getting priority since it has more passengers? i made that comment back in June but not sure it got any traction.

Now we got a great resolution for the P512 passengers!

What troubles me is how the MBTA and/or Keolis are so blind to these things that they don't see it themselves?

If they use Beacon Park for layover & staging of Worcester line trains, and use say tracks 1 & 2 at South Station exclusively, they could avoid crossing over the NEC tracks, eliminate delays for the line and increase the station capacity. Can they fit two trains at a time on those platforms?

Tracks 1 and 2 platforms have less than 800 feet of useful space. No way you could double-pack anything onto those platforms, safety considerations aside.

A new one on the Framingham / worcester line today. Apparently a lighting strike put the third-world signaling system into a kerfluffle causing unexpected delays.

To be fair, a lightning strike would take out any signal system...

D

Any copper wire signal system. Radio or fiber optic would be resistant.

"Slightly more" resistant. Nothing's going to survive a direct 20,000 amp strike, including a fiber cable that'll pretty much gooify from the heat discharge. The only thing fiber helps with is preventing the strike from spreading too far, jumping/overpowering the next ground, and frying equipment the next signal bungalow over. But signals still need electricity, so any modern cable bundle is still going to have copper in the form of the low-voltage power feed. The most Jetsons Tech trackside hardware in the world still doesn't work if the power's been knocked out to every microchip and radio repeater for miles around.

Several years ago, lightning made a direct hit on the signal bungalow at South Acton
and totally charred the insides. It took a couple of weeks to bring in a new
bungalow, rewire it and get it up and running.

D

And more recently, I think we all remember what happened when lightning struck a bungalow near Forest Hills and the kinds of chaos it caused in the interrim of its outage.

GP40MC1118 wrote:To be fair, a lightning strike would take out any signal system...

D

Yeah, I am just being grumpy. Two weeks ago I was on the Fitchburg line and taking the express train from North Station to Littleton /495. The train still has to slow down at various places but overall a quick ~ 40 minute ride. On the worcester line, this would be the equivalent of getting to Southborough in 40 minutes. I was observing all of the new signaling hardware on the fitchburg line and am slightly jealous.

I don't know if people in West Suburban, Metrowest and Worcester area have less political pull, or if it is because the "T" purchased the perpetual easement more recently that riders on the Framingham/Worcester line seem to get less attention?

BandA wrote:I don't know if people in West Suburban, Metrowest and Worcester area have less political pull, or if it is because the "T" purchased the perpetual easement more recently that riders on the Framingham/Worcester line seem to get less attention?

The Worcester line has been getting a fair amount of state of good repair/maintenance backlog work for the past two years in the form of lots of tie replacement, track destressing and soon to be second track through Beacon Park.

In addition to the ongoing work, according to the T's(possibly fantasy) PTC plan the line should also be getting a full signal rebuild that will tear out the junk ABS signals between Framingham and Boston. This would hopefully be accompanied by the class 4 upgrade they've been talking about since 2013.

Station wise there are also plans in the works for new accessible Auburndale and Natick stations. Granted all the stations from Framingham east should be getting that upgrade but that's more of a between now and 2040 plan.