Restoration of Commuter Rail on Aquidneck Island

Oh Ok, I see, in other words, the high Tension Wires and their colums are high enough for trains to safely pass under. Also, another idea for this ROW is for Amtrak to have service from Washington, DC through New York and Providence (similar to the old Cape Codder) to get to Newport via Taunton and Fall River, which would also be a great idea on weekends

Robert Paniagua wrote:Oh Ok, I see, in other words, the high Tension Wires and their colums are high enough for trains to safely pass under. Also, another idea for this ROW is for Amtrak to have service from Washington, DC through New York and Providence (similar to the old Cape Codder) to get to Newport via Taunton and Fall River, which would also be a great idea on weekends

Much sooner than that RIDOT's been poking around the idea of sinking a small ($2M thereabouts) grant into state-of-good-repair work on the existing tracks so the dinner train can start running a dinky for in-season for general purpose transit, open up some new bare-platform stops, and re-extend the track back the extra block to the transit center. RR said it'd buy a couple Budds or something to run a more frequent back-and-forth schedule. I could see that being pretty popular, especially if the bare-platform stops had unstaffed bicycle rentals akin to the Boston Hubway system. You could easily do a stay on Aquidneck I. car-free with such a setup.

As for the bridge, RIDOT's got no reason to do that because nothing north of Fall River is going to move >25 MPH unless South Coast Rail comes through, which makes even a transfer stop impractical. But route-priming the island sooner is a good tourism investment for the relatively meager cost. If SCR did come to pass the length of the new bridge over the preserved approaches is similar to the MBTA's small drawbridges on the Rockport Line. T's spending $40M to blow up and replace Gloucester draw with an all-new movable span. Sakonnet Bridge would be a few feet longer, but probably in the same $50M or less price range. That's easy to justify if there's someplace to go on the MA side of the border. The ROW in Tiverton was never landbanked. It is still carrying an OOS designation with P&W holding active freight rights, and RIDOT and P&W have more or less a pact to not change that. No rail trails, and the reactivation process is more G&U-like than a de-landbanking where the NIMBY's are much more limited in the extent they can pull an Operation Chaos to hold it hostage or extract a pound of flesh driving up the cost. They can probably do the mainland work for less than $100M if the time comes when the MA side has viable transfers.

I see, P & W still sort os runs that track. Hopefully South Coast Rail will provide some train service, this is a great area of Fall River and Newport especially with sightseers

Robert Paniagua wrote:Oh Ok, I see, in other words, the high Tension Wires and their colums are high enough for trains to safely pass under. Also, another idea for this ROW is for Amtrak to have service from Washington, DC through New York and Providence (similar to the old Cape Codder) to get to Newport via Taunton and Fall River, which would also be a great idea on weekends

I think the transmission line may have been there for quite some time. It's also my recollection that the tower on the Tiverton side is offset to clear the single track and on the Aquidneck side the tower structure was constructed in a design to permit the single track to pass with sufficient clearance through it. It is less common for towers of this sort to allow for that as contrasted with H frame construction that is often used for transmission above live track, but if I am wrong a monopole tower could be substituted to afford clearance to the side. Small cost as compared to what a rail bridge would entail.

Unless plans fall through I'll take a look weekend after next.

Otto Vondrak wrote:

mental757 wrote:it's not too long to read and I'd recommend checking it out:

http://www.dot.state.ri.us/projects/int ... ummary.PDF

That report is now gone. Can anyone summarize?

The report is now available here.

I think the transmission line may have been there for quite some time. It's also my recollection that the tower on the Tiverton side is offset to clear the single track and on the Aquidneck side the tower structure was constructed in a design to permit the single track to pass with sufficient clearance through it. It is less common for towers of this sort to allow for that as contrasted with H frame construction that is often used for transmission above live track, but if I am wrong a monopole tower could be substituted to afford clearance to the side. Small cost as compared to what a rail bridge would entail.

Unless plans fall through I'll take a look weekend after next.

Then those towere would preclude MBTA Bilevel operations on that route if they are less than 20' high from the tracks, I wonder how high are they are, so that an MBTA Bilevel train can safely pass from Boston/Fall River to Newport

As promised, here's a photo I took about a week ago of the 115kV transmission tower on the Aquidneck side of the location of the former bridge that connected to the mainland at Tiverton. It clearly was built to accommodate rail traffic passing through the superstructure, and I suspect may have been built when the bridge was still operable. Whether it is of sufficient clearance for the double deck cars I could not determine. A site visit for measurement would best be done at the end of winter before spring foliage growth. In any event it would not be a major project for National Grid to raise or relocate this single tower to the side of the track, as are all other transmission structures on the line if the use of double deck cars was desired. Someone with access to the clearance plates for line would be able to determine the status. If one zooms in a bit, or looks carefully, it appears that the ties and rails still are extant to the edge of the abutment.

Nice photo, MBTA bilevels are 17 feet tall, but a single level train could go safely under them and even Amtrak Service (if amtrak wanted to run service from Boston to Newport) would also serve well

Ken W2KB wrote:As promised, here's a photo I took about a week ago of the 115kV transmission tower on the Aquidneck side of the location of the former bridge that connected to the mainland at Tiverton. It clearly was built to accommodate rail traffic passing through the superstructure, and I suspect may have been built when the bridge was still operable. Whether it is of sufficient clearance for the double deck cars I could not determine. A site visit for measurement would best be done at the end of winter before spring foliage growth. In any event it would not be a major project for National Grid to raise or relocate this single tower to the side of the track, as are all other transmission structures on the line if the use of double deck cars was desired. Someone with access to the clearance plates for line would be able to determine the status. If one zooms in a bit, or looks carefully, it appears that the ties and rails still are extant to the edge of the abutment.

There's rail right to the abutments on both sides, although it's removed starting at the Riverside Dr., Tiverton grade crossing. The dinner train maintains the Aquidneck-side ROW right to the base of that tower and will drive work trains all the way onto the approach embankment, so it's literally only the last 20 feet of track from the tower base to the abutment that's officially OOS.

Oh I see, so the Newport Dinner train can travel up from Newport right up to the point 20 feet shy of the Sakonnet River Bridge, thats good, passengers then can get sweeping views of the three towns the train sweeps by, Newport, Middletown and Porthsmouth

Robert Paniagua wrote:Oh I see, so the Newport Dinner train can travel up from Newport right up to the point 20 feet shy of the Sakonnet River Bridge, thats good, passengers then can get sweeping views of the three towns the train sweeps by, Newport, Middletown and Porthsmouth

I'm not sure where the revenue trains reverse direction, but they don't go directly to the end of track. That's just maintained in-service and used by the occasional work train and rare excursion.

Werll, at least the should go up to the shoreline to give its customers a nice, sweeping view. And as I mentioned earlier, all they need to do is put a new span to get it further into Fall River

Couple of questions about the former bridge to Newport.

Someone on the forum said it was damaged by a barge and someone else said it was damaged from an overweight/oversized car, does anyone know for sure?

When the bridge was damaged there must have been cars/and or engines still on the island, how did the get them off(did they limp them back over the bridge)?

Thanks

Bridge was first damaged by an overweight P&W train transporting military equipment in 1980, and the tracks were taken out of service after (but not during) that. The swing span then got hit by a barge in 1988 which left it permanently stuck in the open position and unrepairable. Before 1988 it was easily repairable if P&W got around to it, but the barge hit finally rendered that task infeasible.