I suppose you could install full-highs on stations east of Framingham, and if they ever need to restore wide freight 20 years from now (for some reason) they can install gauntlets, or saw off the edge & install flip edges.
BandA wrote:I suppose you could install full-highs on stations east of Framingham, and if they ever need to restore wide freight 20 years from now (for some reason) they can install gauntlets, or saw off the edge & install flip edges.They won't ever need to, though. Per the set of posts up the page about all the paper legalese that's being waived in 2018 for wide-clearance to Allston, the last Plate F-accessible easements set aside for exactly those 20-50 year considerations (i.e. the Romar siding) are being extinguished. There physically are no abutting sites on the whole of the Worcester Line east of Framingham that can ever establish new customers capable of taking high-and-wides. The property just isn't there within rail access, and most of the historical sites that used to have sidings (like the whole New Balance area, which used to be its own thicket of spurs till the early-90's) have been flat-out rezoned away from industrial. There's $0 in theoretical on-line freight revenue left on the whole route absent any available industrial zoning. The functional extinction that came with Beacon Park's closing is now legally extinct with the extinguishing of the Romar easement and Houghton contract.
That includes access to Everett. There'll never ever be impetus to hold onto that Framingham-Allston clearance for purposes of clearing the currently Plate B-restricted Grand Junction for CSX when Pan Am can take Plate F loads from CSX-Worcester all the to BET, take Plate E loads from BET to Everett, and only needs some inexpensive track undercutting around a couple Sullivan Sq. overpasses to uprate the last restricted leg from E-to-F to complete the circuit. If Harbor dredging and Everett Terminal upgrades ever send the upside of rail access there so sky-high that a currently indifferent CSX sees the need to go big on chasing greater carloads there, the state will chuck in any necessary payola covering the cost/convenience difference of having PAR do Worcester-Everett haulage on CSX's behalf rather than duplicate routings with public capital $$$ to clear the Grand Junction.
It's not as if every train that departs down the Framingham Sec. on those few dailies feature high-and-wides to begin with. Readville only spots the occasional 60 ft. boxcar; depending on what the day's car manifest is they very often don't need to flip the edges on the Upper Franklin mini-highs at all. The Mansfield-Attleboro local and Attleboro-Middleboro local/interchange run are similarly incidental on high-and-wide car counts, with most of the Mass Coastal interchange's Plate F traffic being theoretical for the future when the still-new shortline can take advantage of ongoing MassDOT infrastructure upgrades. There it's a strategic consideration more than a traffic reality. CSX bartered off a lot of territory to the shortlines, and figures to do more dumps in the future (e.g. Attleboro-Middleboro-Braintree to MC). In exchange it expects those shortlines will put in due-diligence elbow grease to generate business, so CSX can make higher margins at the interchanges than it could wasting its own time running door-to-door. Policing the clearances against infringement for a couple piddling runs today is protection for real future profit increases that may come out of the fruits of MC's labor at the interchange (be it M'boro or a retreat to Attleboro Jct. in the next territory dump).
With Readville, it's simply a matter of that being their only finger left touching Boston and Route 128 after the Beacon Park dump so they're damn well not going to gamble any further after giving up so much. Southie and Quincy port traffic are only Plate C because of clearances on the Fairmount Line, Southampton/Widett, and Old Colony/Fore River Branch to Braintree, so that isn't a driver. It's the mere fact that Readville's a Plate F-accessible underutilized yard bordered by underutilized industrial-zoned property; 50+ year revenue considerations exist here in a way they physically and zoning-wise no longer do on the inner Worcester Line. Readville might be spotting no more than the odd handful of 60-footers per week until the end of time, but the mere existence of those industrial and yard properties abutting a clearance route conveys intrinsic monetary value whether CSX can be motivated to utilize it or not. The functional revenue difference between this corridor and Allston-Framingham might be slight in real $$$ in 2017, but the zoned industrial and yard properties still exist on the L-shaped route to Readville here whereas they no longer do (not even as paper easements) inbound of Framingham. And that's the sum total difference why they'll oppose any infringement till the end of time on the Framingham Sec. + Upper Franklin clearances they barely use while willingly letting go of the clearances to Allston they used used 24/7 until a few years ago.
It's the difference between intrinsic long-term property values of one route being >$0 vs. one route being =$0.
