What's with Watertown?

[jaymac]

Another reason for keeping the branch in good shape back in the day was the Watertown Arsenal. Large Coastal Artillery gun tubes were both IB and OB loads -- IB for tubes being relined and OB for new and relined tubes. A B&M employee magazine in either the late '20s or early '30s had an extensive article about the preparations for transportation.

[cpf354]

A large number of cars were handled at the Arsenal during WW2 too, making it one of the most important branches on the B&M during the war.
Rode through W Cambridge yesterday on the commuter rail. The branch and the lead that ran to the yard where the Co-Op was now sport rail heads the color of ochre. The branch disappears into brush behind the movie theater.

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

The part behind the Mall is now far and away the worst-condition part of the line. I walk past there every day and it's sunk about a full inch or two in the last 3 years. I think the new condo development on New St. is screwing with the water table, because that stretch of track got dramatically worse. That's your new no-go spot should Newlyweds start posturing for train deliveries again. Around the Waterworks it's pretty much same as it ever was. Some trees starting to sprout up in the woods between Fresh Pond Pkwy. and when it starts running in the grass, but otherwise it's pretty clear and the patch job they did under the overpass in '06 for drainage is holding. It's full of trash past Huron Ave. because that's the extent of where the Waterworks picks up the trash.

There's so many track issues now with the sinking ground by the Mall that whether Newlyweds wants to pay to upgrade its siding is pretty much moot...you're not getting a train past the New St. crossing without replacing 250+ feet of track and throwing down new ballast. We're just about at the impossibility threshold unless they were to guarantee two-a-month deliveries to justify even that much track work. I honestly think the ROW is in better hands with the EOT and the trail happening before funding dries up. It's the difference between 100% likelihood of no more trains + abutters getting bold about muscling in, or 100% likelihood of no trains + high-utilization commuter path linking Alewife with the Charles system. And maybe just maybe a preserved ROW for the Green Line to snake out to Watertown Sq. from Union/Porter on 40-50 year future timescales. Part of Watertown's overarching goal with the trail is to piece together the broken land ownership on the ROW from School St. to Watertown Sq. where it was abandoned by B&M in 1960 to get the trail contiguous out to there. Once complete to the Mall they want to deal for trail easements through the industrial backlots (with the necessary sidewalk detour around that one Lexus dealer that built right on top) and extend it to the Square. The ROW is still intact everywhere but the Lexus parcel. As long-term they want to flush some of the auto chop shops and scuzzy light industry out for redeveloped commercial/retail facing Arsenal St., they want to get that foothold first before any redevelopment and then shoot for some outright ownership of those easements through dealing and eminent domain. They're at least being smart about the preservation upside and grabbing all they feasibly can from Mall to Square as an overarching goal. Even if it's 90% likely to ever carry more than a trail. But I'd hate to see a pretty well thought-out pursuit start to fizz out with PAR and Newlyweds going several years more without blinking.

[frrc]

It will be interesting to see how newlyweds handles deliveries once Beacon Park is closed, as transload work will be moved 30 something miles West to the new yard CSX is building in Westboro. This is sure to cost more in terms of delivery.

J

[b&m 1566]

When will Beacon Park be closing?
Regardless, I don’t see Newlyweds going back to direct rail service. If I remember correctly, Pan Am agreed to upgrade the line if Newlyweds could guarantee a certain amount of loads. I don’t know where it went from there but it's clear, Newlyweds wasn't interested. Now Pan Am is stuck with a line they can do nothing with.

[frrc]

When will Beacon Park be closing?
Regardless, I don’t see Newlyweds going back to direct rail service. If I remember correctly, Pan Am agreed to upgrade the line if Newlyweds could guarantee a certain amount of loads. I don’t know where it went from there but it's clear, Newlyweds wasn't interested. Now Pan Am is stuck with a line they can do nothing with.

Beacon Park is supposed to be closed in 2012-2013, once the new expanded yard in Worcester is built, and the other yard built in Westboro, MA. Freight formerly sent via rail to Beacon Park will be sent via truck from either Worcester or the Westboro yards to Boston.

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

When will Beacon Park be closing?
Regardless, I don’t see Newlyweds going back to direct rail service. If I remember correctly, Pan Am agreed to upgrade the line if Newlyweds could guarantee a certain amount of loads. I don’t know where it went from there but it's clear, Newlyweds wasn't interested. Now Pan Am is stuck with a line they can do nothing with.

Well, they're stuck until they can work out a mutually agreeable buyout of Newlyweds' customer contract. They have an agreement in principle with the state to sell the line for the Watertown Community Path extension to Cambridge. Things didn't ground to a halt until their original FRA abandonment filing got tied up by Newlyweds' leverage ploy on their 99-year freight contract with B&M and the filing had to be withdrawn. It's been in a holding pattern ever since, now going on into its third year. And doesn't look like either side's in any hurry to talk to each other. But the second they can close out Newlyweds' contract, PAR flips the line and calls it a day. Watertown did all the scrap cleanup on the first leg of path behind the Mall that's now open on the 1996-abandoned part of the line that the state owns landbanked. Cambridge will probably do the same since almost all of the line there is on Fresh Pond conservation land and they already take it upon themselves to clean up and brush-cut because Pan Am could never be arsed to. I'm pretty sure PAR's giving them a cut-rate price on the land deal in exchange for them never ever ever having to lift one bloody finger cleaning up.

Watertown's got a nice project page up for the fully municipal portion of the path: http://www.ci.watertown.ma.us/index.aspx?nid=602. And then there's the slightly separate state-fed trail org that's doing the part over the landbanked line: http://watertownbikeped.org/pathdesign.html. The video on the City of Watertown page shows the painstaking job they're doing piecing back together the midsection past the Mall where B&M's 1960 abandonment fragmented the ROW to private ownership. That's by far the most impressive part of the project, making the line 90% whole again to point where they can pluck off remaining linear blockers as Arsenal St. properties overturn on 1-2 decade timescales. The W'town Branch and Bemis Branch state-owned are pieces of cake by comparison because of the landbanking protection. Simply pass the baton to Cambridge at the border for the Fresh Pond/Alewife leg, then start chipping away at the Bemis end in small chunks till they're at Waltham. The first little segment behind the Mall is open and nicely-landscaped...a massive improvement over the scrap-and-sand dumps and tow truck parking that the abutters were blighting the tracks with before. But it's still a crippled ROW without that midsection getting you to the Square and to the Charles. Really, doesn't even matter if no train could ever run there again...creating something out of nothing ought to get them nominated for all sorts of urban planning awards if they pull it off. I have natural built-in suspicion of trail lobbies in this region posing as NIMBY's-in-sheep's-clothing, but this is a really well thought-out model project in same vein as the Fitchburg Cutoff/Somerville Community Path.

[b&m 1566]

So Newlyweds stopped the B&M from abandoning the line as they have a contract to adhere to; then a year or two later Newlyweds switches to truck deliveries? That has to be a breach of the contract, so why isn’t the B&M playing the hand that Newlywed’s dealt them 5 years ago? I’m getting the idea that the two parties don’t get along.
I don’t think Newlyweds will do business again with Pan Am upon Beacon Park's closure, but it will be interesting to watch and see if cost will determine otherwise.

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

So Newlyweds stopped the B&M from abandoning the line as they have a contract to adhere to; then a year or two later Newlyweds switches to truck deliveries? That has to be a breach of the contract, so why isn’t the B&M playing the hand that Newlywed’s dealt them 5 years ago? I’m getting the idea that the two parties don’t get along.
I don’t think Newlyweds will do business again with Pan Am upon Beacon Park's closure, but it will be interesting to watch and see if cost will determine otherwise.

Newlyweds' contract allows them to switch truck or rail pretty much whenever the hell they wanted based on wherever the lower rates were. I don't know if they had God negotiating the contract for them way back when or had compromising pictures of a B&M exec, but they got themselves one hell of a permissive deal. PAR's already played its leverage on that, and they got shot down by the fine print. So here we are: 1) PAR can't safely run any more trains because track conditions are so bad. 2) Newlyweds won't spend a dime on fixing up its siding or guaranteeing any regular traffic to offset PAR for the cost it would have to float alone to fix up the latest stretch of impassible track by the Mall. 3) The trail deal is the only way PAR can wash their hands of this without losing money, because that state money is how they intend to break even settling with Newlyweds. 4) Newlyweds won't dance with them about buying out the contract--even though they'd certainly profit more taking a check vs. spending to upgrade their siding or doing nothing at all. 5) ...but they've got such a permissive contract they have zero self-motivation to do anything unless trucking rates spike through the roof, and can just wait it out. 6) Everything grinds to a halt, towns have to wonder if the trail funding's still gonna be there whenever this gets resolved, hazardous trash builds up on the ROW and the potholes at the Mall crossing get so bad they start wrecking mufflers but nobody has any idea what they're allowed to do with everything suspended, PAR gives itself an ulcer contemplating the doomsday scenario of Newlyweds passive-aggressively saying it wants train deliveries again over that track, and everyone's frustrated.

PAR got dealt some bad leverage with the contract it inherited, but I really can't fault them for anything here. They're being fair to all parties, and they've been magnanimous about running trains again if the customer will just work with them enough to make it safe to run trains. But Newlyweds has a trump card, albeit one that's more theoretical than practical. And have decided that it's in their best interests to hold rather than cash in that trump card.


I dunno. It might come down to wholly unrelated party CSX and how the post-Beacon Park trucking rates are gonna play out for every 3rd party shipper who moves out of that yard. PAR might have to pin its hopes on the actions of a competitor a full three parties removed from the situation who is probably unaware of what's going on. All I know is every week there's more trash dumped on the tracks behind the Mall, every month the washout under the track pedestrian crossing to the Parkway/Vassal Lane traffic light wears deeper and gets easier to trip over (the ties are pretty much suspended in thin air now), every season the tracks by Danehy Park sink a little further under the mud, and every year the Mall grade crossing potholes get closer to giving someone a $500 repair bill. I just want something to happen. I live right there, walk past here 2-3 times a day, and am getting annoyed by the creeping blight because all realistic action is in suspended animation.

[NRGeep]

If there is ever Green Line service to Union Sq Somerville and lots of money to spend LOL, there could be a new A train to Watertown via a Green Line connection at Union Sq parallel to the Fitchburg and then entering the Watertown Branch. Would probably have to be single track though. Just dreaming...

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

If there is ever Green Line service to Union Sq Somerville and lots of money to spend LOL, there could be a new A train to Watertown via a Green Line connection at Union Sq parallel to the Fitchburg and then entering the Watertown Branch. Would probably have to be single track though. Just dreaming...

Never know 30 years down the line. It used to be fully double-tracked so getting as far as the Mall wouldn't be a problem. Area is all light industry with 1 if not both sides of the ROW generously buffered between abutters by side/rear parking lots and driveway fire lanes. I wouldn't expect any major zoning changes on that whole stretch because the light industrial properties aren't conducive to it, and the driveway buffering makes encroachment a non-issue. Could quite easily rail-with-trail it to the Mall and have double-track, and there's only a couple widely-spaced grade crossings en route (gonna assume Fresh Pond Pkwy. is an elimination/underpass) . The brutally difficult part is the "reclaimed" center section from the Mall to Watertown Sq. where the only way to reclaim the bare-minimum 20 feet of path width is to get creative and not leave a lot of room for side landscaping, benches, grassy knolls, etc. It may never, even with redevelopment and the blocking properties being slowly picked off for gap-filler, ever be wide enough to support anything but the path width. The only way they can wiggle the extra room comparable to the landbanked portion's buffer is if all of the properties on that 3/4 mile stretch of Arsenal get flipped and redeveloped in a way that they lurch several feet forward and become sidewalk-abutting storefronts/multi-story residential...with trade-in for more ROW buffer in back comparable to what it used to be. That's the direction they want to aim for, but it's asking an awful lot to expect every single parcel owner to go toe that line.


Believe me though, H2O-town is still smarting enough from losing the Green Line that they aren't oblivious to future-proofing value. It was only 1994 when the last restoration court order got shot down and the trolley tracks were ripped up. The yard was full of deteriorating PCC's until '97 or so when the last of 'em got scrapped, and right up to the end in '94 you'd see occasional after-hours moves with a trolley-pole equipped Boeing LRV or PCC making the lonely inbound trip to Boston for work duty or to tow another pantograph-only Boeing or Type 7 back to the carhouse for body work. It's still recent history for them. Even at an 0.002% chance of ever happening they're trying to be careful to do no harm to those odds, and certainly the reclamation job on the encroached ROW is good proactive practice. Maybe moreso because they can get better funding streams to maintain and expand the corridor when the ROW has a modicum of long-term hold value vs. one so useless or fragmented it doesn't even work as a crazy transit pitch.

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

I walked the first opened trail segment yesterday (Arlington St.-School St. + the former Arsenal siding). I was virtually alone save for 1-2 passersby during the half-hour back and forth because the initial segment doesn't connect to anywhere east or west yet, but a very nice walk.

They did an excellent job landscaping the ROW. Can't believe only a year ago it was a trash- and scrap-metal strewn industrial dumping ground. Occasional benches (although noticed a couple of them were tagged already) and bike racks. No trash cans yet, which I thought was odd. Lot of use of wood farm fencing against Arsenal St. property lines, which gives it a little bit of rustic feel (although don't know what that's gonna look like in a decade when the pressure-treated wood starts rotting). Quite a bit of new culvert work. For generally non-scenic light industrial property the backs of buildings were kept pretty nicely; only a couple small blighted properties en route. About half of it parallels the back of Watertown Mall where the excess parking is never used, and a big industrial park on the other side where Verizon has all its trucks parked. Very quiet and well-buffered from Arsenal St. noise, especially with the industrial park dead on a Sunday. They've got rows of new saplings on either side of the ROW the whole distance, so it should grow to be even better sound-buffered with time. It's already a nice contrast to the Arsenal drag. Industrial park side doesn't have a whole lot of tall tree cover because it looks 1980's vintage, but there are a couple grand old trees on some of the older factory lots on the Arsenal side overhanging the ROW. There's a spot between the Mall and Arlington St. that feels very woodland with the wind whipping through some of that old growth.

Only grade crossing on the current segment is on the industrial park access road, which was obviously barren yesterday. They put very, very nice tall granite markers at each entrance to the trail and grade crossing--maybe 6-7 ft. tall--emblazoned with "DCR Watertown Greenway" on one side with the DCR logo and some lush wetlands logo (new Charles River trail logo?) on one side, and a color (!) map of the entire Charles trail network on the other side. This is all engraved. The map shows the line contiguously connecting to Alewife, the Minuteman, the Somerville Linear Path, and the Mystic River paths on one end, and the Charles River past Watertown Square in Arsenal Park on the other end. Watertown Greenway colored green, other trails in black, water blue. Compass, town names, everything. Exquisite worksmanship...those markers are spectacular-looking. And so new they're gleaming white. Obviously they've got their plans to go to Alewife and on the piece-together through the Square "in stone", so to speak. I don't know how full-on accurate it's shooting to be, but the fact that it's a contiguous connection to Alewife gives me a little hope that they'll build some connector between Fresh Pond and and Alewife (maybe behind the plaza to Terminal Rd. with a footbridge over the tracks) instead of requiring the dangerous ped/bike detour around the parkway. And interestingly, the complete trail segment through the Square to the River had this little green stub continuing west off it which was a not-so-obvious hint they're thinking Waltham via Bemis Branch on a later phase. Plus the whole Mystic River system connections from Alewife, which don't currently exist in-full either. Wow...if they can pull off all the moving parts involved, especially that tricky private property stitch job through the Square, this is gonna be one hell of a useful link between everywhere and everywhere.

ROW is incredibly wide. Definitely see the line's 2-track lineage in the grading. At no point along the trail is it ever narrower than 2 tracks + decent-size buffer. And behind the Mall it gets so wide that I wonder if there was once a 3rd siding track. ROW crunches a little bit just as you're nearing Arlington St. on one end and past the industrial park access road on the other. Clearly was something more there prior.

Of course, get to the School St. end and you're staring straight into the BMW showroom. Like, literally if you walk in a straight line you go through the showroom doors as if it were a big glass enclosed train station. Ugh. Doesn't look like it'd be too bad a detour around that building back onto the ROW when the town starts getting its back-lot easements for the rest of the trail to the Square. Thank goodness car dealerships are notoriously transient tenants who come, go, build, raze, rebuild without staying too long in one structure. Very unlikely this will be a ROW blocker in 20 years the way the Arsenal drag is likely to get redeveloped. Really, other than a nice facade and tinted glass it's not much more a cheap steel box...nothing that'll have any tremendous permanence. But, jeez, it really is just...right there on top of it.

Neatest thing by far is that they preserved the switch stand to the Arsenal siding. Fully intact...from the look of the bolts doesn't appear to ever have moved off its base. Shield on top's a little bent but it's otherwise complete, in perfect condition, and right there for you to look around, touch, take pictures of. I checked all the patent renewal dates on the base...last date said 1911. Thing is quite possibly that old. Very good-condition find. I would recommend visiting and taking pics of it before somebody tags it. I'm surprised it lasted that long vandalism-free. No placards yet anywhere on the ROW giving historical overview, but I can't imagine it'll be too long. The switch stand alone is enough of a curiosity.


Construction looks done on this segment except for a pile of sidewalk bricks at the Arlington St. end where they're doing some touch-up work. Saplings still have ties/braces on them until they grow a bit. Nothing whatsoever has taken place with the next trail segment from the other side of Arlington St. to Grove St. You look across the crossing and there are the tracks in the grass same as they ever were. And, man, is the brush ever thick under the Grove St. bridge. I walked Grove on the way back and I couldn't even see to the ground from either side of the bridge, much less peer through and get any glimpse of Newlyweds' siding. Maybe they're not working this additional segment this summer? I would've figured they'd tackle brush-cutting before the full year's vegetation growth came in, but I guess not.


Anyway, two thumbs up. The additional segments east and west are going to have to get filled in before this gets connected to the world, but a great start. And definitely one of the "good" trail plans out there for preservation and utilization. Has potential to become a model trail and critical link if they do get that wonderful granite map filled in to a literal "walk/bike anywhere to anywhere" bipedal mass transit system. At least somebody's thinking big on the urban planning side. For railfans, do check out that switch stand...one of the best-preserved specimens out there with full public access. It's visible right from the Watertown Mall back parking lot where the main path and the Arsenal siding path converge. Can't miss it...just park, walk up the grass, look around, pull out your camera.

[Tim Mullins]

I don't think I saw anything in your post but I was wonder if the tracks still went over school st. to Barker Steel where I use to work about 28 years ago...There was also a couple of brick companies there that would take cars...The last time I was up that branch we came to that overhead bridge, can't remember the name, but the engine was leaning so bad that it shut down...The track guys were standing right there and they took off running up the hill thinking I was going to tip over.
Fortunately there was another engine on the other end to push me through,then I was able to restart the engine. We were only going as far as Newleyweds. Not a fun trip!!!

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

I don't think I saw anything in your post but I was wonder if the tracks still went over school st. to Barker Steel where I use to work about 28 years ago...There was also a couple of brick companies there that would take cars...The last time I was up that branch we came to that overhead bridge, can't remember the name, but the engine was leaning so bad that it shut down...The track guys were standing right there and they took off running up the hill thinking I was going to tip over.
Fortunately there was another engine on the other end to push me through,then I was able to restart the engine. We were only going as far as Newleyweds. Not a fun trip!!!

Tracks, if they ever crossed School St., wouldn't have gone more than a few feet because that was the end of the line post-1960 when the midsection was abandoned. Anything right there, buildings and all, would've been totally obliterated when the BMW dealership was built directly on top of the ROW. The tracks did go to the literal foot of School St. until last spring before they ripped them up, as the section past Newlyweds to School St. was only abandoned in '96. It's all new parking lot construction on the other side of School St. past the dealership until you get to about Louise Ave. and then the ROW turns back to unkempt weeds out to the municipal lot by Taylor St. Also goes through the gravel work yard of what looks like a masonry yard. There are still 50-years abandoned rails--even sidings--sticking out of the ground in parts because no one has ever paved or landscaped those scuzzy industrial lots. This is where the town is seeking easements to resume the trail to and past the Square after the BMW dealership detour. And eventually get some more attractive development along arsenal than these chop shops.

Except for the damn car dealership this is a stunningly unencroached ROW for one that was let go to private property holders 5 decades ago in the absolute center of town. There must've been a hell of a lot of toxic waste nobody wanted to clean up around all the old factories in the bad old post-industrial decay days on Arsenal for nobody to muscle in and even start enroaching the property lines, let alone pave or plant over the rails.


BTW...walked down Fresh Pond on the sidewalk in front of the Waterworks today. There's a freshly subterranean 50-foot stretch of track on the grass by the street, few feet from the community garden where it goes into the brush. That's a new sinker that developed over winter/spring, joining the 200+ foot stretch of track behind the new New St. condos. And the track fix and drainage patch they did under the Waterworks overpass in '06 is now so washed out the new ties are just resting on bare ground. I didn't go down to see if any of them have daylight underneath them. Also several loose track joints on the incline up from the overpass to the grass and few-foot stretches where the tracks lean a little bit inward because of the weak joints. I'm assuming last couple years of service were running over those loose joints and slowly bending the track.

Only 3-1/2 years since the last run. And it's still [hand-quotes] "technically active" track. There's gotta be an anti- Hall of Fame we can nominate branches like this for. Yowza.

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

http://watertown.patch.com/articles/unu ... iking-path

In late June, Pan Am Railways informed Watertown officials of their plan to abandon 1.72 miles of the former Boston & Maine Railroad track known as the Watertown Branch.They requested input from town officials.

Is this saga finally drawing to a close? I haven't seen an STB filing yet, but if they're requesting comment from the town a settlement with Newlyweds must be imminent.