Proposal for MARC to Run to Hagerstown + Potential Brunswick Line all day service

RRspatch
As for connections at Washington Terminal "C" interlocking and CSXT the leg between "C" and "F Interlocking" (Ivy City) was originally two tracks. As far as I know the second track bed is still there. The connection between "C" and "QN" has been single track since WAMTA built their Brentwood yard back in the early 70's. Not sure if there's enough room to squeeze a second track in between the current track and the west leg of the coach yard wye.

The Metropolitan and Capital Subdivisions are directly connected to each other with two tracks and totally bypass the trackage within Washington Terminal. The single track you are referring to is the Y track within Washington Terminal and has no connection to the Capital Subdivision or NEC on the east leg.

Sand Box John wrote: ↑Sat May 15, 2021 9:31 pm RRspatch
As for connections at Washington Terminal "C" interlocking and CSXT the leg between "C" and "F Interlocking" (Ivy City) was originally two tracks. As far as I know the second track bed is still there. The connection between "C" and "QN" has been single track since WAMTA built their Brentwood yard back in the early 70's. Not sure if there's enough room to squeeze a second track in between the current track and the west leg of the coach yard wye.

The Metropolitan and Capital Subdivisions are directly connected to each other with two tracks and totally bypass the trackage within Washington Terminal. The single track you are referring to is the Y track within Washington Terminal and has no connection to the Capital Subdivision or NEC on the east leg.

Here's the area that's being talked about. QN is on the left, F is on the right, the NEC is two tracks to the far right, and K is off-screen at the lower left.

Now, here's a point of contention. Lets say we have on of those stupid-long mixed freight trains coming from the Metropolitan Subdiv going to the Alexandria Extension and then to the RF&P Subdiv heading south, and it's badly timed. MARC Camden Line trains heading into Union Station will need to hold at F-Tower or RIVERDALE for the train to clear because there's only one track to the NEC and K-Tower... and it's on the northbound track. (Similar for reverse: Northbound MARC Camden Line has to wait for a freight to clear the Extention and RIVERDALE).

Trace the entire line.... and you're going a convoluted route just to get across town.

It looks like some sort of track capacity improvements must happen around K Tower. All of those little things really make a difference when planning for significant service improvements to any sort of rail service. CSX has a knack for not compromising with passenger rail. With them, they usually just get by, if you are lucky.

I remember learning about the head on collision between the reverse peak MARC train and Amtrak Capitol Limited Train # 29 in Silver Spring. That was very sad. It's great that northwestern leg of the Red Line serves many suburban stations, given the fact that Bethesda and Rockville are huge. I believe that Shady Grove Station isn't in Rockville but Derwood. While the Red Line service is frequent and goes pretty far into the suburbs, I think it's still worth looking into the studies for service improvements on the Brunswick Line. I don't think the derailment should become a barrier for looking for better things to come with the Penn Line. Once you get west of Germantown, many of those communities served by the Brunswick Line have very little, if any, parallel bus service. Even if they had bus service to Shady Grove Metro and Downtown DC, taking a bus into the District the entire way or doing the bus to the Metro would take too long. Even if there were MARC trains every other hour heading to Brunswick and maybe Hagerstown during the off peak hours and weekends, that would be an ok start.

STrRedWolf

Here's the area that's being talked about. QN is on the left, F is on the right, the NEC is two tracks to the far right, and K is off-screen at the lower left.

Now, here's a point of contention. Lets say we have on of those stupid-long mixed freight trains coming from the Metropolitan Subdiv going to the Alexandria Extension and then to the RF&P Subdiv heading south, and it's badly timed. MARC Camden Line trains heading into Union Station will need to hold at F-Tower or RIVERDALE for the train to clear because there's only one track to the NEC and K-Tower... and it's on the northbound track. (Similar for reverse: Northbound MARC Camden Line has to wait for a freight to clear the Extention and RIVERDALE).

Trace the entire line.... and you're going a convoluted route just to get across town.

Simple solution. Build a retained fill that carries track 2 over both legs of the Y in Hyattsville.

As you may recall CSX and Maryland DOT grade separated the Annapolis Road crossing about 15 years ago.

Sand Box John wrote: ↑Sun May 16, 2021 5:41 pm Simple solution. Build a retained fill that carries track 2 over both legs of the Y in Hyattsville.

As you may recall CSX and Maryland DOT grade separated the Annapolis Road crossing about 15 years ago.

Okay... where? I just traced all of Annapolis Road from Wheelabrator to Nursery Road, and I'm still seeing three grade crossings.

The Annapolis Road in Odenton doesn't cross CSX track.

That said, a couple of fly-overs would help here... as would a third track and better access into Union Station.

STrRedWolf
Okay... where? I just traced all of Annapolis Road from Wheelabrator to Nursery Road, and I'm still seeing three grade crossings.

The Annapolis Road crossing during its construction on the Alexandria Extension.

Sand Box John wrote: ↑Tue May 18, 2021 7:17 pm STrRedWolf
Okay... where? I just traced all of Annapolis Road from Wheelabrator to Nursery Road, and I'm still seeing three grade crossings.

The Annapolis Road crossing during its construction on the Alexandria Extension.

Ahhh. When I read "Annapolis Road" I think up near Baltimore and parts of MD-170, MD-175, etc.

I can see a fly-over replacing one of the legs of the Y there. But I also think a flyover at F-tower would help as well.

Sand Box John wrote: ↑Sat May 15, 2021 9:31 pm RRspatch
As for connections at Washington Terminal "C" interlocking and CSXT the leg between "C" and "F Interlocking" (Ivy City) was originally two tracks. As far as I know the second track bed is still there. The connection between "C" and "QN" has been single track since WAMTA built their Brentwood yard back in the early 70's. Not sure if there's enough room to squeeze a second track in between the current track and the west leg of the coach yard wye.

The Metropolitan and Capital Subdivisions are directly connected to each other with two tracks and totally bypass the trackage within Washington Terminal. The single track you are referring to is the Y track within Washington Terminal and has no connection to the Capital Subdivision or NEC on the east leg.

The single track I was referring to is the track that the MARC Brunswick and Amtrak Capital Limited trains take. This short stretch of single track connects Washington Terminal "C" interlocking at New York Avenue with CSXT "QN" (Queenstown) interlocking. While this is a fairly short stretch of track it could be a bottleneck if frequency was increased. Lets call this track the "west leg of the wye". The question I asked is there enough room to add a second track between "C" and "QN" with the Amtrak coach yard wye on one side and WAMTA Brentwood shops on the other side?

The other leg of the wye we can call the "east leg" which connects "C" with "F" interlocking. This was two tracks at one time and as far as I know the second track bed is still there.

The last leg of the wye we can call the north leg. This is the part that connects "F" and "QN" and is used by CSXT freight trains.

STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 7:45 am

Sand Box John wrote: ↑Tue May 18, 2021 7:17 pm STrRedWolf
Okay... where? I just traced all of Annapolis Road from Wheelabrator to Nursery Road, and I'm still seeing three grade crossings.

The Annapolis Road crossing during its construction on the Alexandria Extension.

Ahhh. When I read "Annapolis Road" I think up near Baltimore and parts of MD-170, MD-175, etc.

I can see a fly-over replacing one of the legs of the Y there. But I also think a flyover at F-tower would help as well.

The problem with a fly-over at Hyattsville (JD interlocking) is that the Baltimore Avenue bridge is in the way. That fly-over would have to be very tall and steep to clear that bridge. I'm thinking a tunnel or duck-under starting just past the Anacostia river and coming up just south of Riverdale would be a better option.

STrRedWolf
Ahhh. When I read "Annapolis Road" I think up near Baltimore and parts of MD-170, MD-175, etc.

I can see a fly-over replacing one of the legs of the Y there. But I also think a flyover at F-tower would help as well.

Fly over track 2 and connect both legs of the Y to both mainline tracks: RRspatch
The problem with a fly-over at Hyattsville (JD interlocking) is that the Baltimore Avenue bridge is in the way. That fly-over would have to be very tall and steep to clear that bridge.

Demolish the bridge and reroute the Baltimore Avenue through traffic to the west side of the tracks along Armentrout Drive.

I'm thinking a tunnel or duck-under starting just past the Anacostia river and coming up just south of Riverdale would be a better option.

That option would likely require a sump to pump the seepage and storm water out of the duck under / tunnel. The out fall from that pump would require on site storm water management as the EPA would not allow the out fall to be dumped into the Anacostia river.

scratchyX1 wrote: ↑Fri May 21, 2021 11:38 am I was under the impression most of the traffic is southbound, so there would need to be only one flyover from northbound alexandria branch to southbound camden line, to avoid blocking both of the mains with westbound traffic. It looks like there is barely enough room to run a flyover from around the anacostia river bridge, over the northbound track, along Decatur Street, and crossing over the Camden line, running right up against the sidewalk on Rt1 and reconnecting at armentrout drive.
There may have to be the two buildings in the Y Removed for bridge supports.

I would assume the fly-over would go from the branch's split, over all traffic, and connect back on the southbound side south-west of the JD interlock but before F-Tower. That way, MARC can single-track into Union w/o interference off the Camden Line.

But I'd still advocate just bypassing DC all together with a branch line west of the city.

The State is starting a feasibility study, which will not be finished until 2023, which will then need EIS studies -both Tier1 and Tier 2 studies under "New Starts" or a aligning up all the local funding under "Core Capacity Improvement" program. In either case, we are at least 5-10 years away from dirt flying on this project. Yet you guys are arguing specifics when there are no specific plans yet, why?
At least you could wait for the results of the feasibility study before arguing over specifics, the State may decide it will not be worth all the costs to provide the expanded service after all.

So, during my stay in Rockville between last Sat and this Saturday, I have spent a lot of time along the Brunswick Line. I have observations that I want to point out.
1. Adjacent to Metropolitan Grove, I believe there are plenty of condos and more will probably be going up. There will probably be commercial development as well. Those factors will probably help ridership increase even more at Metropolitan Grove Station. Parking lot wasn't full there but I could imagine what it was like pre-pandemic.

2. As for installing the third track, as mentioned before, it's probably not going to be very easy to do it through Silver Spring where the Met Sub follows the Metro Red Line. I could certainly see it being done west of Silver Spring in plenty of spots. I only made it as far as Germantown along the Met Sub so I can't really comment much west of Germantown. I could certainly see the third track being built in many spots from just west of Silver Spring to Germantown. Yes, there will probably have to be many trees and branches cut. In addition, road overpasses going over the railroad may have to be widened underneath. For example, the Connecticut Ave bridge west of Kensington. I think one of the platforms at all of the stations between Kensington and Germantown would have to be rebuilt. I'm sure that MARC will keep their low level platforms on the Brunswick Line for a very long time so it probably won't matter much about building new low level platforms on curves-Kensington and Germantown Stations come to mind, although the curves there aren't very sharp. Gaithersburg is on a bit of a sharp curve at the end. Garrett Park, Rockville, and Metropolitan Grove Stations are already on straightaways but stations like Rockville-it would probably be a matter of observing the space between the eastbound MARC platform and the Metro right of way. On the westbound side, there is the elevated space between the platform and the east parking lot.

By the way, when I was at Metropolitan Grove Station, I observed maybe 10 peak riders waiting for and one of the westbounds. I noticed that there are many office buildings within walking distance of Metropolitan Grove Station. I know that in better times, Rockville has seen a fair share of people commuting to work by train from the west.