Search

I wouldn't be too admiring of the MBTA commuter rail fare structure. They've recently (due to relentless political pressure from communities on the Fairmont Line) pushed more Boston stations into zone 1A (equivalent to a subway fare), but: -There's still 5 stations in the southwestern neighborhoods ...

Crews may be based at either an outlying terminal or a "city" end terminal, depending on the line. Most but not all lines have an outlying crew base. For example, all Northside lines have outer yards where crews report, except for Lowell. All crews on the Lowell Line are either BET based, ...

Even further from New England, but into at least the mid-1980s, my family's shortline in Chester County, PA (Octoraro Railway, now the East Penn Railway) received potatoes from the northwest (Idaho, Montana, etc) in BN reefers, destined for Herr's Snack Foods in Nottingham, PA. No idea if any of thi...

Some survey work from Massachusetts on the changing demographics of transit riders here in the Boston area. https://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/survey-indicates-dramatic-demographic-shift-among-t-riders/ TL;DR - Riders of choice (more affluent, more white-collar jobs, more white) have le...

Welp, at least I doubt there's a better training ground for the nexus of nasty state politics and sprawling, complex, and aging transit systems in the US than working for the NY MTA during Cuomo's governorship. Let's hope he's got the right experience and temperament to take on the T's problems whil...

Very quick digest from the press conference: -Sounds like main issue was discrepancies or record-keeping issues between track geometry car inspections, visual track inspections, and how all of that was correlated into appropriate slow orders. -Once known, decision was made to apply blanket slow orde...

Fortunately, and while they weren't completely life-expired, the ETB's themselves were probably some of the least-critical infrastructure to a continued service. They weren't dead yet, but were 20 years old. Any ETB modernization plan would have entailed new ETB's with in-motion charging capability ...

As of yet, they've done nothing which would irrevocably prevent the return of service, if there was a change of prevailing attitudes at the T. They've taken down just the overhead wire (contact wires and span wires) in locations where road construction is going on, but much of the rest of the OHW is...

Why can't the dimensions of the cars be based on the smallest dimensions? I assume that's the Blue Line. Yes, platform heights and widths would need to be adjusted, but that would be orders of magnitude lower than outright rebuilding tunnels. Also, this: https://www.wcvb.com/article/mbta-expects-fu...

Wouldn't the best bet (long term) be to switch to a four-door car design? Or are there reasons (other than maximizing seating versus standing capacity) why WMATA doesn't want to go this route? Given how massive Metro cars are (compared to many other RT systems) I'm still surprised they stuck with th...

The first post-Conrail incarnation of what is today East Penn, the Octoraro Railway, operated the W&N into Elsmere DE but no further. While it did on paper have a connection with Conrail in Wilmington, this was never actually used and all interchange was with the B&O/Chessie/CSXT. This is/wa...

Someday...maybe. A recent (okay, about 4 weeks ago) walk behind North Cambridge carhouse/garage (to be converted into the first battery bus depot) showed little to no activity. Even all of the overhead wire was still up around the site, though the garage itself is now cut off from the rest of the sy...

Even as it is now, there's also considerable economic costs to allowing our congestion to continue. The hours of time lost in traffic (either by individual commuters or people and goods "at work" on the road) is a growing tax on our local economy.

In terms of whether there is demand or need for greater off-peak frequencies, have folks not seen the traffic congestion on weekends? Much of 128 and the major highways and roads inside it are stopped and/or crawling for good portions of weekends, too. A gradual conversion of commuter rail to region...

A bit of counter-point to the doom and gloom surrounding commuter rail systems from Boston, where ridership is reaching around 3/4 of pre-pandemic levels. And weekend service (which was expanded and made more regular) is now regularly exceeding pre-COVID levels. https://commonwealthmagazine.org/tran...