by F-line to Dudley via Park
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massac ... ood_plans/
Saw this little item buried in a Globe article about the Fenway-area transit bill up in the Senate. Apparently they're tucking some money in to install a crossover at Park St. that will FINALLY allow for through inbound Green Line service on the inner track.
What took them so long? Since that's always been a loop track, it's been useless for anything except short-turns...which are only done on a one-off basis for schedule adjustments. I think it would be a huge help to the daily rush hour bottlenecks to be able to use both tracks for through service. Most trains on the outer track won't even double-up and use the full platform length to let passengers off...they just hang back with doors shut and wait their turn to pull up. Before long the line is stretched back all the way to Boylston, and that inevitably forces even more short-turns (which are already occurring in epidemic numbers because of those slow, slow Bredas). Double-tracking through Park gives them so many more traffic management options. You can offload two 2-car trains on the same platform at all times...hell, four 2-car trains at once if they actually used the full platform length. You can cut trains in line...one seriously behind-schedule train doesn't have to kill 4 lines' headways anymore forcing a short-turn (read: you can wave everybody else in front of the slow-a** Breda). And you can actually maintain proper headways on the Lechmere end without having to worry so much about the conga line of Government Center-bound trains messing up their schedules.
Better years late than never. This gives the East end of the Green Line a fighting chance at sane schedule management once all the new extensions open, and if the relief is big enough it may get the T to think more seriously about acting on the next easy and blatantly obvious infrastructure improvement...implementing real, honest-to-God signal priority on the B, C, and E lines.
Saw this little item buried in a Globe article about the Fenway-area transit bill up in the Senate. Apparently they're tucking some money in to install a crossover at Park St. that will FINALLY allow for through inbound Green Line service on the inner track.
What took them so long? Since that's always been a loop track, it's been useless for anything except short-turns...which are only done on a one-off basis for schedule adjustments. I think it would be a huge help to the daily rush hour bottlenecks to be able to use both tracks for through service. Most trains on the outer track won't even double-up and use the full platform length to let passengers off...they just hang back with doors shut and wait their turn to pull up. Before long the line is stretched back all the way to Boylston, and that inevitably forces even more short-turns (which are already occurring in epidemic numbers because of those slow, slow Bredas). Double-tracking through Park gives them so many more traffic management options. You can offload two 2-car trains on the same platform at all times...hell, four 2-car trains at once if they actually used the full platform length. You can cut trains in line...one seriously behind-schedule train doesn't have to kill 4 lines' headways anymore forcing a short-turn (read: you can wave everybody else in front of the slow-a** Breda). And you can actually maintain proper headways on the Lechmere end without having to worry so much about the conga line of Government Center-bound trains messing up their schedules.
Better years late than never. This gives the East end of the Green Line a fighting chance at sane schedule management once all the new extensions open, and if the relief is big enough it may get the T to think more seriously about acting on the next easy and blatantly obvious infrastructure improvement...implementing real, honest-to-God signal priority on the B, C, and E lines.
