Needham Line

troffey wrote: ↑Wed May 06, 2020 6:14 pm According to another post, equipment and crews are based out of Boston at the time. Whether that's only for some lines or all lines, I don't know.

Thanks. Didn't realize they had enough space in Boston to keep that many extras.

Only the 2 Needham trains have been relocated to Boston. The rest of the layover yards are still in use.

Are they worried about vandalism at small layover yards, or maybe with the reduced schedules the first train originates in Boston?

No idea why. But there was a post in the Gloucester Draw thread that no sets were being stored in Rockport either. I can't imagine they could fit everything in Boston, especially for the South side.

Rockport and Bradford are closed on the north side. Some of the equipment has been dispersed into existing sets making them longer. I think Boston can handle two additional south side sets, but they may have done the same thing.

I saw trains parked in the Needham Heights yard the other day; evidently the yard is back in use now.

Today the Needham Heights yard is empty. Dunno what's going on.

charlesriverbranch wrote: ↑Sun Dec 27, 2020 3:37 pm Today the Needham Heights yard is empty. Dunno what's going on.

With the whole system running every day on a greatly reduced schedule, I wouldn’t guess there’s any need to keep train sets at outlying yards.

Same thing they did in the spring when they were running reduced service for an extended period.

There are no trains out of Needham on weekends, so when there's no weekday schedule in effect, the Layover facility is emptied. The same is true for Bradford.

There are (for now at least) Saturday trains but the Saturday schedule is so sparse that there's only ever one train set running. The weekday schedule has a few extra trains (2 inbound, 1 outbound) which would necessitate more than 1 set running.

What he means is there are no trains used out of the facility with a weekend schedule. So normally they sit for 2 days and come out on Monday. Running a weekend schedule all week means they would sit indefinitely.

Sorry if that has been covered but how often do trains run on any part of the Millis branch that branches off after Needham Junction.

I know a portion is being converted to a rail trail but doesn't the Framingham Secondary run through it?

theseaandalifesaver wrote: ↑Sun Mar 07, 2021 7:10 pm Sorry if that has been covered but how often do trains run on any part of the Millis branch that branches off after Needham Junction.

I know a portion is being converted to a rail trail but doesn't the Framingham Secondary run through it?

The Needham section is a rail trail south of High Rock St. to the Charles River bridge. Dover residents have been arguing about whether their section will be a trail or not. I don't know what the current status is but I know that the decision was that the Dover section will not cross the the Charles River bridge to connect to the Needham section and will not connect to the Medfield section. https://www.baycolonyrailtrail.org
The Framingham Secondary doesn't connect to Needham at all anymore.

https://universalhub.com/2021/theyve-be ... velong-day

It's not clear from the article if the replacement bridge will accommodate a future second track, or if space is merely being left for a second bridge.