• Needham Line

  • Discussion relating to commuter rail, light rail, and subway operations of the MBTA.
Discussion relating to commuter rail, light rail, and subway operations of the MBTA.

Moderators: sery2831, CRail

  by Rbts Stn
 
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.
  by Trinnau
 
Only the 2 Needham trains have been relocated to Boston. The rest of the layover yards are still in use.
  by BandA
 
Are they worried about vandalism at small layover yards, or maybe with the reduced schedules the first train originates in Boston?
  by troffey
 
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.
  by CRail
 
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.
  by charlesriverbranch
 
I saw trains parked in the Needham Heights yard the other day; evidently the yard is back in use now.
  by charlesriverbranch
 
Today the Needham Heights yard is empty. Dunno what's going on.
  by chrisf
 
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.
  by Trinnau
 
Same thing they did in the spring when they were running reduced service for an extended period.
  by CRail
 
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.
  by chrisf
 
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.
Last edited by CRail on Tue Mar 09, 2021 10:51 pm, edited 1 time in total. Reason: Unneccessary quote removed.
  by Trinnau
 
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.
  by theseaandalifesaver
 
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?
  by chrisf
 
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.
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