Haverhill Line Upgrades (Western Route)

Why not install a gauntlet track, and route the freight trains through the middle?

It makes too much sense. The MBTA won't do it.

That's always the case.

The little dozer scraped in a desultory way for another week. Now there's roadbed pretty much ready from the new station platform to the Salem St. overbridge, but as of yesterday they were still 100 yards short of the barricade by CPF AS (former tower location). Nothing happening on either the existing easterly track through Shawsheen or the roadbed from there to Ballardvale.

Note to self: Photograph the Salem St. bridge, there are not many Whipple trusses left.
Random: Google's satellite photo of the area shows three EMDs on an eastbound passing the old station.

jbvb wrote:

Rockingham Racer wrote:That's going to be a good place to stash a freight out of the way once it's put back in, leaving room for a second future platform for Track 1, of course! I am assuming there will be a crossover at Andover St. from Track 2 [now the runner] to Track 17 eastbound.

On [email protected], someone reported a conversation with a foreman on the project who said that AS will be removed entirely, leaving access to the east end of the freight yard only via Frost. Back when there were customers on the M&L, this would have been unthinkable but now... At that rate, I wouldn't be surprised if there won't be any connections between the easterly and westerly tracks between the new End of Double Track around MP 21 and Frost.

Hello, everyone. My principal interest in this route is the Downeaster, but whatever speeds things up through this bottleneck will benefit everyone.
I'm new here and not as familiar with the territory as you all seem to be. I don't get some of the geographical references you use. Can you help me out?
First, I'm assuming "AS" means Andover Street in Lawrence, yes? Would that also be a controlled point at the north entrance to the yard there?
Second, I'm throughly confused on how the tracks are numbered through the area. Looking at Google Maps at the location of the new Lawrence station, I see two tracks. The one on the north next to the platform, is that Track 1?
The next one south, is that Track 2?
There is ROW south of those two tracks, but the track appears to end at a bumper just east of Osgood Street; is that Track 17? If so, is that track scheduled to be restored? How far, all the way to AS?
Finally, where is Frost? Would that be just west of Hurst Street where the third track from Osgood Street joins the EB track? Is that a CP as well?
Thanks.

Stephen

Steven,

You are correct on CPF-AS, as being Andover St, an interlocking plant at the north end of Lawrence yard.
Track numbering is Track 2 on the Lawrence platform side, then Track 1, then Track 17 south of that.
CPF- Frost was installed and placed into operation just east of the Lawrence station, I'm going to say about 18 months ago. It is there that Track 17 will be connected to Track 1, and it will run all the way to Andover St.

RR,

Thanks very much.

So then, if Track 17, presumably a freight bypass track for high & wide (?), is going to run between AS and Frost, I don't understand the talk about no room to put a second platform on Track 1 at Lawrence station. It looks like the ROW at the location in question once had four tracks. You mean to tell me there's now no room for three tracks and a platform? I don't get it.

A second full high level platform and a ramp structure or elevators would be a tight fit.

sery2831 wrote:A second full high level platform and a ramp structure or elevators would be a tight fit.

So...impossible, right?

I wasn't necessarily thinking of a second platform. An island platform between tracks 2 and 1 (like the old station) would do the job and require only one ramp/elevator instead of two. I mean, isn't the point of this exercise to increase capacity on the line? As it is now, the passenger line has been reduced from double track to single, requiring all eastbound MBTA trains to cross over to track 2 to do station work at Lawrence. What a bottleneck. What a dispatcher headache. I don't see the logic of this arrangement. Anybody?

eastwind wrote:

sery2831 wrote:A second full high level platform and a ramp structure or elevators would be a tight fit.

So...impossible, right?

I wasn't necessarily thinking of a second platform. An island platform between tracks 2 and 1 (like the old station) would do the job and require only one ramp/elevator instead of two. I mean, isn't the point of this exercise to increase capacity on the line? As it is now, the passenger line has been reduced from double track to single, requiring all eastbound MBTA trains to cross over to track 2 to do station work at Lawrence. What a bottleneck. What a dispatcher headache. I don't see the logic of this arrangement. Anybody?

All points I've made more than once on this subject, so as someone once responded: Remember, you're dealing with the MBTA

Oh. Right. Sorry, I forgot.

After three weeks, I got a chance to look things over today: Track 17 now has about 200 feet of partly-assembled track beside the old station's platform and the pile of prepped ties by the new station is a little smaller. No other progress visible.

It appears that the MBTA is doing the Track 17 job with their own people, and they're going to get a year's employment out of this bit of 'stimulus': The dozer is gone, the loader is still there, taking a clamp-load of ties up to the end-of-new-rail several times a day, helping the crew lay them out, and dragging lengths of rail up as necessary. The assembled but unballasted track now reaches from the west end of the old platform to about half way along the lumberyard. There is another stack of tie bundles behind the Freight House in the yard, presumably they're for the other end.

No visible progress on the actual double-tracking, or doing anything with the new rail they dropped in September 2009.

Looks like they'll have the track assembled from Frost interlocking past the new and old stations to the Lawrence St. overpass by Friday. There are a lot more ties stacked across from the new station than they appear to need for this part, perhaps they'll get moved to the other end when that starts.

Other activity observed: Guilford has removed rail from the yard track that got torn up in the perchlorate derailment last year. Somebody is digging under the Rt. 28 underpass west of the yard. Could be drainage improvements, but since neither GTI nor the MBTA has a history of fixing mud holes in the roadbed (cf. the Ward Hill underpass), I wonder if they're going to extend the west yard lead toward the I-495 overpass. The RoW has room AFAICT.