Grand Junction DETOUR Discussion

[sery2831]

The BU Bridge over the Charles River has been taken out of service. Look for a detour of Amtrak/CSX/MBTA trains via the PAR Worcester Main.

[jbvb]

Nothing on news sites yet. Do you think the bridge is so unstable they can't use the Grand Jct. bridge underneath it?

[sery2831]

The railroad bridge is out of service for all locomotives.

[agarturbo]

That means to go from southside to northside trains will have to go out to Worcester, up to Ayer and back down the Fitchburg Line? That's got to be a few hours for what was a 20 minute trip. What doomed the bridge and are there plans to fix it (or did the MBTA buy a lemon from CSX)?

[BostonUrbEx]

I thought the ban was on freight only and the only restriction for MBTA/Amtrak was that they couldn't run two locomotives across at once?

[sery2831]

As of 3PM today, that all changed.

[ST214]

Some interesting photo opportunities are on the way!

[Komarovsky]

Wow, that's going to be quite a pain. IIsn't the line between Worcester and Ayer 10mph or something like that, surely there must be a less time consuming route...

I live near where the line goes through the Greendale section of Worcester, so I'll have to keep an eye out if they start routing trains that way.

[jamesinclair]

Ah yes, traditional american planning.

Redundancy? What for. Theres no need to maintain that one critical bridge, itll be fine. Why have an alternate route?


Someone dun goofed.

[ST214]

Most of it is up to 25MPH now.

Wow, that's going to be quite a pain. IIsn't the line between Worcester and Ayer 10mph or something like that, surely there must be a less time consuming route...

I live near where the line goes through the Greendale section of Worcester, so I'll have to keep an eye out if they start routing trains that way.

[blackcap]

That's one heck of a detour, coming in at around 108 miles total length (36 miles BET-Ayer, 28 miles Ayer-Worcester, 44 miles Worcester-South Station; 64 miles for equipment going to Worcester layover yard), compared to about 7 from BET to South Station via the GJ.

My data comes for the milepost info posted in the Wikipedia articles on the Fitchburg and Framingham/Worcester Lines, and the Ayer-Worcester approximate mileage was calculated using the path measurement feature in Google Earth.

[theseaandalifesaver]

Does anyone know the reason the bridge was taken out of service and if there's plans to fix it?

[ST214]

The bridge has some major structural problems.

[Teamdriver]

How long would the detour take, is it an immediate thing or do cars sit somewhere until a shuttle get cobbled together? As produce for the Chelsea market is perishable, would the cars be diverted to a cross dock siding, maybe Mansfield ,or old S&S Readville ,to assure the product doesnt wither on the vine, time being of the essence?

[Tracer]

So what is csx doing with the reefers and scrap cars bound for Everett? Are the handing them off to pan am to deliver via ayer(La1?)?