Pan Am Worcester Main Line

They have been unloading the Eimskips at Ayer.If they were headed east at Lancaster then they would have had to come from CSX or P&W I would guess..

NHV 669 wrote:Empties headed back to be refilled at Waterville, pallets of Poland Springs Water trucked from the plant in Kingfield. This traffic has been going on for a bit.

Edit, I'll answer your own question with one of your old posts.

viewtopic.php?f=55&t=131728&p=1417137&h ... p#p1417137

I am well aware of what I wrote. You are obviously not familiar with the area based on your response. Lancaster is south (west) of Ayer on the Barbers to Ayer line. These containers were coming from Worcester off of CSX to or through Ayer. I catch SEPO/POSE between Worcester and Ayer regularly and this is the first time I have seen Eimskip containers heading to or from CSX. These may or may not have had anything to do with PS water.

Yes, I realized that after I rechecked the map after I made the post, which I was then unable to delete. My apologies.

See attached photo of MBTA note mailed to towns along the Worcester Main for some good news (likely thanks to the largess of Massachusetts taxpayers...)

Getting ready to start service to North Station, huh?

Last evening (Sunday) I heard D3 speak to an MBTA extra (if I understood correctly) about heading west on the Worcester branch. Wasn't around to hear or see if it happened.

Let's see -- 1+ months of work mebbe might get this back to 25 mph MAS.
The cynic in me suggests that this might be a way of getting future Southside-BET moves to be completed in only 1 crew-day while GJ work is ongoing.

It's another Pan Am Scam. They wouldn't let Keolis run over it without fixing it.

Good enough for 10K tons and hazmat on SEPO but not a few T engines and coaches. With no other north-south link, they have them by the balls.

Guess the cynic in me wasn't cynical enough.

Will be interesting to understand what the scope of the work will be. From the notice, it looks like they are doing the minimum to get the line in better shape and nothing beyond that. Wonder how many ties are going to be installed? Anyone know when the last major tie job was completed on the line?

20,000 ties, just to maintain Class I. Tells you how good of shape it's in.

In round numbers, it's about 23 miles from P&W track connection at Barbers to the south end of Hill yard, so 20,000 ties yields an average of about 900 ties per mile or roughly one tie every 6 feet. So the MBTA will be replacing every 4th or 5th tie on average, except perhaps on bridges, turnouts, and grade crossings. Does that sound about right?

I don't know what the MBTA means by the term "infrastructure changes" but I'm guessing no rail or stone is being added? Maybe PTC!

johnpbarlow wrote:In round numbers, it's about 23 miles from P&W track connection at Barbers to the south end of Hill yard, so 20,000 ties yields an average of about 900 ties per mile or roughly one tie every 6 feet. So the MBTA will be replacing every 4th or 5th tie on average, except perhaps on bridges, turnouts, and grade crossings. Does that sound about right?

Yes, the standard tie spacing of 19 and 1/2" yields a 3250 ties per mile quantity. So 900 ties per mile does work out to about every 4th tie with an extra few for good measure, I'm sure they'll find places to use all of them.

so basically all the existing ties are considered bad due to age or condition. Saw pictures of the Grand Junction with track pulled up on another thread, so yeah PAR Worcester Main is Required.

For two whole weekends this summer the Boston & Worcester Line will be severed at Cottage Farm/BU - anything crossing over from South Station to Boston Engine Terminal, for example, would have to go south then up the Framingham Secondary to Framingham, then west to Worcester!

Several pieces of MOW equipment for the tie job are on the Clinton siding now.