trestle removed over 95 south of mass pike

Hi all.

I saw this on Memorial Day weekend but forgot to post until now. Spotted a trestle that had been recently removed on 95 south of the mass pike. May have been exit 19 if I remember right. I was on the way to Needham and it was not foo far after that. I know there are several abandoned ones on 95 north and south of the mass pike.

The old NH/Old Colony line extending from present commuter rail terminus in Needham Heights which used to connect with B&A (now Green line) in Newton I believe.

Part of the highway widening project. Abutments will be made in the event that a bridge is necessary again.

BostonUrbEx wrote:Part of the highway widening project. Abutments will be made in the event that a bridge is necessary again.

Double-track abutments that can support a deck for a 286K line. An entire mew rail bridge was final-designed for the add-a-lane project because design completed before the abandonment docket on the line past Needham Heights was processed. They cut the deck from the design to save money, but left the new side abutments in the construction schedule because they act as a retaining wall for the hillside the ROW is perched on. It was too late and costly to file a design change for a regular retaining wall or EIS a re-grading for the hillside, so they're just keeping it simple and proceeding with the originally-planned build. Center jersey barrier divider on the highway will not get abutments, but will spread out wider so they can add them later.

Should somebody want to build a rail trail and link it overhead they can plop a weak pedestrian deck on the abutments. Any such deck would be swappable for a real rail deck if the Green Line were ever branched to Needham because the abutments (including any center abutments erected) are required to support a double-track 286K deck's weight. So it's fully provisioned for whatever that's worth. Rail trail doesn't have any plans for crossing Route 128, however. They're going for Charles River trail system access and access to Highland Ave. with the widened sidewalks on that street's new 128 overpass under construction.



I want to know if they're ever going to get on with the trail on the Lower Falls stub branch connecting Route 16 in Wellesley and the Cochituate Aqueduct trail with Riverside station. That would put transit access in very convenient commuter reach for that pocket of residential density cut off by 128 and the Pike exit frontage road, but whatever unofficial talk there was of proceeding with anything there on that intact but otherwise transit-useless branch has gone completely silent.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Should somebody want to build a rail trail and link it overhead they can plop a weak pedestrian deck on the abutments. Any such deck would be swappable for a real rail deck if the Green Line were ever branched to Needham because the abutments (including any center abutments erected) are required to support a double-track 286K deck's weight. So it's fully provisioned for whatever that's worth. Rail trail doesn't have any plans for crossing Route 128, however. They're going for Charles River trail system access and access to Highland Ave. with the widened sidewalks on that street's new 128 overpass under construction.



I want to know if they're ever going to get on with the trail on the Lower Falls stub branch connecting Route 16 in Wellesley and the Cochituate Aqueduct trail with Riverside station. That would put transit access in very convenient commuter reach for that pocket of residential density cut off by 128 and the Pike exit frontage road, but whatever unofficial talk there was of proceeding with anything there on that intact but otherwise transit-useless branch has gone completely silent.

Wellesley is an excellent place to bicycle east-west. Lots of twisty connected side roads rather than useless cull-de-sacs, with one dangerous road to cross (and some dangerous intersections nearby). I did not know the aqueduct trail was built, if so that should make it possible to bike safely at least as far as Framingham. Crossing the Charles River and 128/95 is hard for an auto and dangerous for a bicycle due to busy, narrow roads. Using the Lower Falls Branch would be awesome as it will never be used for freight and unlikely to be used for light rail. Getting safely from Riverside to say Auburn Street should be possible to provision by going through the parkland (avoiding dangerous/busy Grove Street). Heck, while we're at it lets do rail-with-trail along the formerly quad-tracked Framingham main line.

As for the Charles River Railroad line (Upper Falls), replacing that bridge now would be eligible for interstate highway funding. If they do it in the future, does anyone here know? But MA is so inefficient with highway spending, is in a deep hole, has less political pull, and the federal highway funds are depleted anyway.

Note there is discussion about this bridge in the Bay Colony thread

BandA wrote:As for the Charles River Railroad line (Upper Falls), replacing that bridge now would be eligible for interstate highway funding. If they do it in the future, does anyone here know? But MA is so inefficient with highway spending, is in a deep hole, has less political pull, and the federal highway funds are depleted anyway.

Well...they are replacing it. With much better abutments that'll support a double-track line. Decking for a rail bridge is not expensive. It has none of the expensive concrete roadbed an auto bridge does. It's just the bare steel girders, and for a closed-deck design a drainage channel at the bottom. Pour the ballast over it, lay the rails. If they do a prefab job it can be lifted into place in one overnight shift.

To save on maintenance costs and keep from needing to repaint it all the time they're better off just not laying the steel part of the deck. It's by far the cheapest part to install new, especially if they just order prefab-to-spec. Pouring abutments is difficult. EIS'ing, full design process, concrete, scaffolding, landscaping, temporary grading for construction vehicles, etc. etc. They're getting the hardest, most expensive, most engineering-intensive part over with.