Providence Line Electrification

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

The main constraint is just lack of electric maintenance facilities, not purchase cost or fleet size. Electrics aren't terribly expensive vs. diesels, and the Providence line requires so much equipment by its lonesome that the number of units would be self-sustaining. But Southampton's the only onsite facility that can serve electrics, and Amtrak itself is tapped out of space there. They're also tapped out of space in their heavy-maint facility in New Haven. The need for a new Boston-area full-service facility and storage yard has been identified in their long-term capital improvement plans as a high-priority necessity for supporting any significant traffic growth to Boston.

If that comes to pass in the next 15 years or so Readville is the dead-obvious choice for such a facility because there's a whole lot of unused yard property already available and no real restrictions on building there because it's always been train yard well-buffered from the neighbors. If the T gave them the empty yard or brokered a land swap with CSX (which probably doesn't want to stay there long-term), then collaborated on a facility with enough growth space that they could both share it ...an electric fleet gets a whole lot more viable. For one, it would free up a lot more needed capacity at BET for a constantly increasing number of diesels on the other lines if they didn't have to service close to a third of the southside fleet anymore. A facility in Providence instead of Boston could also make MBCR electrics worthwhile because in that case RIDOT would also chip in on a likely even bigger facility to serve its South County CR fleet, which is supposed to be all-electric from Day 1.

I think the new electric facility is the trigger that ultimately brings electrics on the CR from the realm of dreams to the realm of practicality. But until Amtrak says it's go time for that there's simply no way to support those locos on the system.

[3rdrail]

Right on regarding Readville. That's a yard that is just going to spectacular waste. I say do it gradually. Begin a Readville base of operations. Pick a line and gradually catenary it. No major large-scale plans now, just baby steps. Pick up a small fleet of "experimental" electric motors as the first line is almost completed (with planning and research well beforehand). Go from one commuter rail operation to the next. Enter into talks at the beginning with State regarding the expansion of rapid transit simultaneously in the same fashion so that stations can be cut off the commuter network, speeding up those runs. An "electric efficiency" platform might sell this idea. Before you know it, you have a far better metropolitan system with less commuter lines and further reaching rapid transit, with the efficiency and over-all cost efficiency of electricity. I'm telling you folks, the only reason that we didn't have juice east of New Haven, CT for a long time, and dieselized locally, is the fact that the New Haven wanted it as a bargaining chip to get their way with Boston rapid transit. We told them to go to hell and they took their marbles, sulked, and went home. (I wish that there was a smiley with a finger.) It's time to get over that snub.

[MBTA3247]

Except for the Worcester line (which you could electrify just to Framingham for an initial installation), you couldn't "gradually add catenary" to any of the southside lines: you'd have to do an entire line at once, otherwise you'd have infrastructure rusting away while doing nothing for years, which would then require a major maintenance blitz when you did finish installing all the catenary.

[3rdrail]

I'm not talking about decades here, Derek. What would be the problem with infrastructure over the course of a year on any one line ? That's probably in the range of somewhere between 7-10 % of the rate that Amtrak did it on the NEC.

[MBTA3247]

Ah, ok. Yeah, I'd expect that doing any one line would take a year or so. I thought that you meant to do just a few miles in any given year, with an entire line taking years to do.

[3rdrail]

Getting back to the Providence Line - The Boston & Providence ran their new Main Line as a double with an occasional branch making up a third. (At Mt. Hope Station it branched out inbound to three tracks. Please guys, I haven't surveyed the entire B&P Main Line, so there might be others.) Now, the New Haven came in, ready to "take over" and lined it as a four-track mainline. As I've stated (this is documented), the plan was to run suburban commuter trains on the outer tracks with the two inside tracks reserved for high-speed long distance trains such as the ones that were headed to The Apple. A fence preventing pedestrian cross-overs (this was the 19th Century remember) was to be installed between the outer commuter tracks and the inside high-speed express tracks. So, the New Haven eventually got it's feathers ruffled and just considered Massachusetts a long parcel that they were going to run because it was a key route, but not one that they were going to make a showpiece out of as planned. This was the age of steam anyway, and by the time that the diesel era rolled around, they probably saw the writing on the wall. Bottom line however is that, by and large, their gift was that nice wide ROW which had held four tracks. The MBTA should have left well enough alone, but it probably wouldn't be too much of a big deal now to set it up as a four-track line once again. So I say, hell yeah - put in that wire to Providence. Get rid of these inefficient internal combustion machines and put in electric ones - gradually. It aint gonna be the TGV, but it ain't gonna be the old Penn Central either ! (or the MBCR)

[130MM]

If that comes to pass in the next 15 years or so Readville is the dead-obvious choice for such a facility because there's a whole lot of unused yard property already available and no real restrictions on building there because it's always been train yard well-buffered from the neighbors.

There already have been plans to use Readville as a passenger yard. Let's just say that the most famous resident of the area expressed his opposition in strong terms. Don't expect any additional railroad facility to appear at Readville for some time to come.

DAW

[Eliphaz]

...
the New Haven wanted it as a bargaining chip to get their way with Boston rapid transit. We told them to go to hell and they took their marbles, sulked, and went home. (I wish that there was a smiley with a finger.) ...

you can IMG tag someone elses...
or

It never ends. Railroad politics sure has worked against the common good over the years.

[CSX Conductor]

There already have been plans to use Readville as a passenger yard. Let's just say that the most famous resident of the area expressed his opposition in strong terms. Don't expect any additional railroad facility to appear at Readville for some time to come.

DAW

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the railroad was there long before Mayor Thomas Menino was ever conceived, lol.

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

If that comes to pass in the next 15 years or so Readville is the dead-obvious choice for such a facility because there's a whole lot of unused yard property already available and no real restrictions on building there because it's always been train yard well-buffered from the neighbors.

There already have been plans to use Readville as a passenger yard. Let's just say that the most famous resident of the area expressed his opposition in strong terms. Don't expect any additional railroad facility to appear at Readville for some time to come.

DAW

Well, Menino tried with gusto a few years ago to bully his way into brokering a sale of the unused yard for mixed-use real estate development. Problem was not a single developer was interested, so the plan and all its associated bluster died a quiet death. Readville isn't one of the last golden mega-parcels in Boston like Beacon Park or the old B&M yards at Northpoint. It's a three-pronged yard intersected by 3 active and 1 inactive railroads with a street grid that isolates the neighborhoods from each other and can't easily be modified. There's too little inter-mixing of residents to support any unifying development, and Dedham and Hyde Park might as well be in different states rather than 3 blocks away. It's a truly lousy parcel for Menino-trademark residential/commercial high-rises, and booting the rail yards and cruddy light industry won't change that one bit. The area grew up organically around the RR's as dividing lines. Trying to force areas to join when they've never been joined before won't work any better than when SW Corridor Park failed to bring JP and Roxbury into permanent matrimony. For one thing those 3 active bisecting RR's are only getting busier, so it would be even harder to bridge those divides than what didn't take hold further north on the NEC.

Plus, the T owns it. Menino can only interfere so much with what the state wants to do with their own property, especially if he's unable to come up with any development whatsoever lucrative enough to force the state's hands. The T and Amtrak need space in Boston. Where else could it possibly go, and at what insane cost for purchasing similar-size land? Menino's almost 69; he'll be long-retired and out of the public eye in 10 years when Amtrak deems the yard/maint space crunch critical enough to formally seek funding. The unused yard will be cleaned up by then, as the T's doing extremely incremental soil decontamination with trace EPA funding (see the scattered earthen mounds dotting the northwest side of the yard on Google Satellite). It's got a loop, which no other yard including BET has. It's better-buffered from the neighbors than the two active yards on the other side. And it's a bigger piece of land than even BET if you count the south side leased by the school bus yard and tiny gravel company. This is such a no-brainer future hold that they're fully justified telling Menino to screw off.

[3rdrail]

(Excellent post, F !) Also, in this day of rising fuel costs and active government rhetoric of lessening oil demands and sponsorship of engaging the public in using public transport, it would be extremely difficult to remove a staple of that mantra now, which happens to be the Readville Yard, which would also benefit enormously the City of Boston.

[mental757]

Not sure if this has been mentioned in the thread yet, but the Pawtucket yard, I've been told, was designed to be expanded and/or modified for electric.

[digitalsciguy]

Regarding development over the yard, if such a thing were to happen (if smart zoning practices similar to those in Europe actually took hold in the US that prevented further/continued or undid suburbanification of areas outside the RT128 ring) and the area were to become more dense, I don't see why any such development would preclude the possibility of building the development over storage portions of the yard, as proposed with the West Side Yard in Manhattan...okay well, that's not going so well either, with the developer being several years late on that project... As it is, I think Readville is already too far from Boston CBD and the urban core to even begin trying to urbanise, lest we find ourselves with more auto-dependent, oil-consuming hi-rise slums.

I think I might have already brought it up in here before, but how did Penn electrify their network? I take it they didn't do it all in one go? Now more than ever is the time to be investing in infrastructure that can drive the economy back up or at least accommodate the demand for better and more transport when it does.

[FRN9]

Why does everyone hate EMUs? What about MBTA making a deal with MNRR to purchase some m8s (connecticut's unused option) and contracting with MNRR to do the maintenance? Maybe the M8s can be used for SLE as well?

Eventually, once more lines are electrified, they could build a maintenance facility in the Boston area.

[FP10]

Why does everyone hate EMUs?

I think most people here would be ecstatic to see some EMUs operating within Boston. The problems are, as I understand them, that
A) only one line (the NEC) electrified, and only one other (Stoughton) that would be relatively simple to do. The Fairmount line would also make sense as it could be used as an alternate for Amtrak, and would be good for the rapid-transit style service the T wants to implement on it.
B) the T is broke, so unless the Feds fund it there's no money, even if the will was there.
C) as you mentioned, we have no electric shops. So a BET south would have to be constructed, probably at Readville. Even if MNCR would contract with the T to do work, there's over 100 miles of non-revenue track between Providence and New Haven for the equipment to cross to change hands.
D) if I understand correctly, the FRA requires every MU (diesel or electric) to be treated as a locomotive. This adds considerable expense to the cost and frequency of maintenance.

I think the best chance for electric in the near future will be from Rhode Island. I believe they already own a few of the T's coaches, and are looking to expand their commuter rail system. I wouldn't be surprised to eventually see a line to Westerly, Woonsocket, and perhaps even Coventry or Taunton come into being. It will likely be similar to how ConnDOT has their equipment run by Metro North. Since the NEC is Rhode Islands only currently active passenger line, it would make sense that if they made a large investment to purchase equipment and build their own shops it would be electric, not diesel. Part of me hopes that RI will jump on the HHP8s and the better AEM7DCs when they start to be retired by Amtrak since they still have a lot of life in them (and perhaps with an all-out rebuild the software glitches can finally be fixed on the HHP8s), but thats more of a dream than a practical reality.