Readville Bridge Construction

[ohalloranchris]

There appears to be some significant construction taking place at the location of the old trestle bridge connecting the Dorchester Branch to the Franklin line (crossing over the NE Corridor).

New bridge just east of the existing one? Providing direct access to the old Readville shops for a potential future layover yard? I know the existing old trestle has seen better days and has a 10 mph speed restriction.

I took a picture yesterday from the high level platform on NEC track 2 (inbound side). Looks like the makings for concrete forms. I tried to attach the photo here but keep getting a message of "format invalid". (Doing so from my IPad as my work PC firewall doesn't like trains.)

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

That's the "Shoreline Bridge". It's going to get a rapid in situ replacement in one weekend's outage. Similar to how some of the Fairmount bridges and Red Line Clayton St. bridge were replaced in single weekends. All this delicate prep work underneath is rehab and prep of the abutments so they can bring in the crane one Friday night, lift the old deck off, and plop the new pre-assembled deck on. That'll happen later this year, and you'll know the date's fast approaching when they start dropping sections of the new deck on the adjacent ground and begin onsite assembly of it into a complete deck.

Not sure what the train schedules are going to be during the disruption, but since it's over a weekend it shouldn't be a big deal. And they'll probably pick a weekend the Sox are out of town and no major events are taking place. Franklin and Saturday service to Needham would be unaffected since they completely avoid the work site. No Stoughton service anyways on weekends. Providence would divert down the Fairmount Line and the Fairmount-to-NEC connector to avoid the work site, but other than no Back Bay/Ruggles/Hyde Park stops weekend schedules should be unaffected. Amtrak will have to run diesels north of New Haven to use the Fairmount detour, but Regionals should run on normal schedule. Acelas would have to truncate at New Haven or Providence, with tix holders having to be accommodated on a Regional instead.

[StefanW]

Is this the bridge that's being replaced?

https://goo.gl/maps/Y7UXNBxMdXx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
or
https://goo.gl/maps/L3qMqzSHEz12" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

Yep. That's the one. You'll probably see the new bridge deck being prepped for assembly in that gravel yard with the rickety sheds across from the Fairmount Line platform. And then when the weekend shutdown happens the crews unbolt the old deck...crane lifts it out of the way off to the side...crane picks up the new deck, lifts into place...crews spend rest of weekend bolting it into place and putting track + NEC catenary back together for Monday morning.

Fairmount platform's going to be a good 'fanning spot in the weeks immediately prior to watch the prep work and prefab deck assembly. Then a good spot in the days immediately after to watch them cut up the discarded old deck.

[Frode]

It looks like there must have been more than one bridge there at one time. There appear to be abutments for four bridges when I go by on the Providence line.

[StefanW]

Wow - I hadn't noticed that before.

You can see how wide the abutments are from this angle: https://goo.gl/maps/ynRDj1ndVuG2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[MBTA3247]

I think there were originally 5 spans there during the Midland Division's heyday.

[nomis]

This weekend will have extra traffic over the bridge, almost all weekend trains to Franklin will run via the Dorchester branch.

[nomis]

This weekend will be the bridge outage, with a temporary platform setup on the Dorchester branch, and passengers will be 'behind the loco' instead of 1 car behind the cab car.

I heard the the replacement of this bridge may be across 2 weekends, not just one.

[MarkB]

I just did a search to find info on this bridge work, and found this thread. The new bridge is sitting on the ground, looking compete or almost there. There's a crane on the east side of the Amtrak line, and one still sitting on the road on the west side. The swap should be happening soon.

[ohalloranchris]

<<Postby Narrowgauger » Sun Jul 17, 2016 3:34 pm

So since this is the very end of the Fairmont line , what are the plans for the ongoing work in Readville? A new European arched light blue bridge has been constructed below the Sprage st bridge. Upon surveying the old bridge over the corridor, its hard to tell if its being added or replacing the bridge. Also looks like there may be some track realignment going to take place. Any ideas at what the finale work is going to be?>>

I'm not sure myself, but if the bridge alignment is being altered, I would think the Readville Fairmont line platform will need to be moved. Any evidence of construction up there?

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

It's supposed to be a rapid bridge replacement on the same alignment: prep the abutments underneath for the new deck, then swap the decks with cranes. Since there's been no reports of any physical changes upcoming to the Fairmount platform, that most likely means the track alignment isn't going to change by more than inches.


Readville is supposed to get an all-new 2-track full-high island platform constructed on the Fairmount side if/when the T ever follows through on the full Indigo Line service plan for the Fairmount Line. It would've flipped the platform a bit north to the opposite end of the parking lot (i.e. instead of being immediately right of the end of the driveway, it would be immediately left), slotted the island in the gap between the mainline track and the freight lead, then reconfigured the interlockings on both ends for a double-track mainline through the platforms + earlier freight turnout so the wide-clearance CSX cars miss the full-high. But since Blue Hill Ave. hasn't broken ground, Fairmount station is still unfunded for full-high platforms, the DMU order has been postponed, and the T has backpedaled from making any commitment to meaningful service increases (even as far as high-frequency push-pulls), Readville rebuild has fallen off the radar. Don't really need the 2-track capacity and revamped interlockings there until they pin themselves to a firm answer on when exactly service levels are going to scale up to the point where those changes are needed for traffic management at Readville. Construction-wise that reconfig is the cherry on top right before Indigo or Indigo-lite frequencies start running, but in the absence of any "When?" answers on that service plan it's nobody's idea of a construction priority.

[ohalloranchris]

If you want to get a last picture of the old Trestle style bridge, don't delay. The new bridge is the same powder blue non-trestle installed elsewhere on the Fairmont line in recent years. It's functional, but not as photogenic.

[MarkB]

They're pouring concrete today at one of the corners of the old bridge.

[MarkB]

Over a month later, still no bridge in place. They've spent weeks welding in brackets and plates - curious why it couldn't be done at the factory. Maybe the added weight would have been a problem getting the structure to the site.