Simple enough answer: that’s no commuter rail. It was built as a freight line. Overengineered up the wazoo at every weight bearing aerial point and culvert, but retrofitted Old Colony tracks south of Weavers Cove. All about Canadians’ yen for liquified natural gas and our English and Aussie handlers in the scrap metal trade. On both the FR and NB branches, look to the toxic-metal dealers who own the joint construction ventures’ HQs, both the FR branch depots, and at least 1 of NB’s 2 bona fide stations. Skanska USA’s So Coal Rail offc was @ Assonet Village’s Excel Recycling before there even was a FR JV. And we’re the brilliant state, ranked 50 for transparency every year for decades, that completely deregulated scrap metal handling & importation in around 2019. BTW, guess which kind of sham redeveloper owns each layover yards?
Why’s Fall River’s miles before brand-new terminus? Why has a city of 87,000 got no station, but just a roof-free handicap ramp to hike three ways to 22’ in all weathers? Picture Granny tackling that in snow at 4 PM, with her Christmas swag. If she even scored a parking spot, w 210 for everybody. No staff, security, but a ticket machine and trash cans. Oh, tack on the bus pullout lane.
And don’t even bother to ask why CoVid might make people less eager to blow 50% more minutes riding herky-jerky to Boston: 3 stops in first 10 miles, then Middleborough with its shiny and WAY better replacement station proper.
Talk about a slap in the face! Waited 30 years linger than all other urban centers 50 miles from Boston City Limits to see our federal taxes reallocated for Enbridge Energy’s Atlantic Bridge scam? Let those Canadians drill and import their own gas like we do. Weymouth’s Algonquin Compressor Station was the pilot hole. Gov, Mass DOT, MBTA and MassPORTs, MassDEVT, Mass. Clean Energy Center and rest of all their queasy public orgs sold us and Salem down and up the river, and back again.
All rigged to flop in a huge way. Then they’ll make sympathetic noises, ram Phase 2 and 3 past Horizon Dr. in Tiverton, and laugh themselves silly. At our expense.