Blue Line Extension ROW

Yeah, we took a look at that location when we did the study several years ago. It would definitely be a tight fit,
and the noise and vibration issues at the apartment would be huge. But it doesn't matter; they're not going to
run the trains that way anyway. That option was dropped a long time ago.

Here's the section in question we've been talking about. I took this photo two months ago... I've just been lazy and busy to upload it.

trainhq wrote:Yeah, we took a look at that location when we did the study several years ago. It would definitely be a tight fit,
and the noise and vibration issues at the apartment would be huge. But it doesn't matter; they're not going to
run the trains that way anyway. That option was dropped a long time ago.

Ugh but it just makes so much sense. The T really should have made a huge, public deal when those buildings were put up. Or the people in Lynn now. I feel like if a significant media circus could be developed in favor of tearing down those buildings it would happen overnight. The only activism anymore seems to be from the NIMBYs, there is no one leading the way for the public good.

And thanks CS and AutisticPsycho for clearing up the ROW clearances. Its tough to tell on the satellite maps and I've never been all the way up to point of pines (perhaps it has something to do with no convenient public transport...)

So I'm sitting here with the 1995 North Shore Transportation Study which evaluated various options to extend the Blue Line out. The two main options they proposed were:

5A) Extend the line out to Beverly via Point of Pines and a new RR bridge over the river and Route 1A
(349.3mil w/ 6,700 new trips & 29.5 acres taken)
Stations:
Beverly Junction*
Beverly Depot**
Salem
Canal Street (Salem)*
Salem State*
Swampscott
Lynn
West Lynn*
(Note there is no Point of Pines stop... which I find really really odd)

5B) Split the line right before Wood Island, have the new branch follow the old Freight ROW along Chelsea Creek to the commuter rail line out to Beverly
(252.5mil w/9,700 new weekday trips & 17 acres taken)
Stations:
Beverly Junction*
Beverly Depot**
Salem
Canal Street (Salem)*
Salem State*
Swampscott
Lynn
Riverworks**

*New Station, ** Relocated Station

Both these options would have commuter rail services terminate in Beverly and require a transfer to get into Boston. A light maintenance facility/layover yard would be constructed in Newburyport and for heavy maintenance and inspections the trains would take the Blue Line to BET during the off hours. The report favors option 5B, however shows that 5A is still a viable alternative. The main problem with 5B is that the old freight ROW was proposed for a greenway. From current satellite maps it looks like this never materialized, anyone know if it's still in the works?

There were also options 4A and 4B, which were the same routings except with the line terminating at Lynn. The report did not discuss these options in detail however and I am not sure if the commuter rail reconfigurations would happen.

I scanned some diagrams from this book too, does anyone know where I can host really big .tiff files easily?

FP10 wrote:I scanned some diagrams from this book too, does anyone know where I can host really big .tiff files easily?

Megaupload, Rapidshare, and such? I'm not sure if there's anything better than that. And they may require premium (paid) accounts for large amounts of data storage.

Flickr lets you upload tiffs and it's really easy to use

From the 5B option...The ROW along Chelsea Creek is still there, and is for the most part undisturbed. I believe it used to be a train line that went to Logan Airport. It would be a fairly easy tunnel job to connect from the existing Blue Line across to the abandoned ROW. I think it would be just after the Airport Station, and before the line goes underground briefly before Wood Island.. The old ROW passes under Bennington Street right around the Airport/Sumner Tunnel on-ramps and heads to Chelsea Creek. I think at the Creek end the line disappears by some of the gas tanks. The bridge is gone as well, and with the heavy boat tanker traffic over there, it would have to be a tunnel over to Chelsea. I believe the old ROW was supposed to be part of the recently defunct (for now) Urban Ring.

It's an interesting idea, but to go to Beverly would mean a tunnel under Salem which would be very expensive. Also, I ride the Blue Line quite a bit, and during the morning and evening commute there is not much passenger room left even with the six car trains. If they took the Blue Line out to Beverly, the T would have to go back and expand the platforms to 8 car sets, which might be tough or impossible for the stations in downtown Boston. Or the T would have to order a whole bunch of new train sets. Either way, I can't see any money going to this one. I would say that maybe in our lifetime the Blue Line goes to Lynn or South Salem before the tunnel if we're lucky.

I like hearing about all these old studies, but it can be disappointing to hear about all these great ideas that were never funded and that now are probably three time as expensive to build. There are other studies out there with the Blue Line going up to Salem and then to Peabody/Danvers along the train ROW.

The files were like 22MB so there was no where easy to host them. Flickrs limit is 10MB for future reference. I downsized them a bit and converted to jpegs, they are still pretty big though so no problem. If anyone does want them huge sized I threw them on my sky drive http://cid-c8491bdd67263c87.skydrive.li ... e.aspx/BLX

Anyway,
Option 5A: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/438 ... 0aa2_b.jpg
Option 5B: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4010/438 ... 0160_b.jpg

Proposed Beverly Depot: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4026/438 ... 6b73_o.jpg
Proposed Beverly Junction: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4066/438 ... f2ec_o.jpg
^ this one shows the proposed commuter rail terminus.


http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4007/438 ... 3fbd_o.jpg <full size
These are the three different options for the split before Wood Island (Option 5B). I'm guessing the original document was in color, as option 2 and 3 are nearly indistinguishable. If you look closely however 2 is ever so slightly thinner then 3. Option 3 would be the preferred routing according to the study.

Choo Choo Coleman wrote: It's an interesting idea, but to go to Beverly would mean a tunnel under Salem which would be very expensive.

This would be addressed by ending the commuter rail at Beverly and having the existing tunnel used for the Blue Line.

Choo Choo Coleman wrote: Also, I ride the Blue Line quite a bit, and during the morning and evening commute there is not much passenger room left even with the six car trains. If they took the Blue Line out to Beverly, the T would have to go back and expand the platforms to 8 car sets, which might be tough or impossible for the stations in downtown Boston. Or the T would have to order a whole bunch of new train sets.

This is why the study favored a split at Airport rather then continuing on through point of pines. The traffic coming off the extension would be on its own cars so the only time this would be an issue is from airport to downtown. The biggest problem they addressed is that the Wonderland branch would have its headways decreased 50%, from 3/5 min (peak/off peak) to 6/10.


In my own opinion I originally didn't like the idea of having the commuter rail terminate at Beverly. The study admits that while the morning rush would be easily handled by having the trains wait for the inbound commuter rail connection, outbound connections would be far more difficult. However thinking about it further, I would imagine the majority of commuters have to transfer to the subway at North Station anyway, and if they are going to the financial district it may actually be a positive to board an empty blue line train and get a seat versus cramming onto an already jam-packed orange line train or worse trolley. Other positives are that if a commuter is taking the B or D westbound they can also get an empty trolley at Government Center, versus have to transfer twice at NS.

IF this were to happen ever, I would think the best solution would be to have a fleet of Blue Line trains with forward facing seats (the flip kind) vs the current setup, making the transfer to subway more appealing to commuters on the now shortened Rockport and Newburyport lines. Having trains able to travel at speed (50MPH+) would also be essential to keep the trip times reasonable. (Anyone know if the new cars can do this?)

The other problem I can see is that Chelsea gets even worse transportation as they loose their stop, but perhaps a short Orange Line spur could be added (maybe even allowing the Oak Grove trains to actually use the express track!).

FP10 wrote:

Choo Choo Coleman wrote: It's an interesting idea, but to go to Beverly would mean a tunnel under Salem which would be very expensive.

This would be addressed by ending the commuter rail at Beverly and having the existing tunnel used for the Blue Line.

That would result in a major bottleneck, as the existing tunnel is only single track, use of which would be unprecedented for a rapid transit line.

I also see they want to use gauntlet tracks at Beverly Depot. There's double track there already, why would they want to shrink that to 1.5 tracks?

I'd just extend the Blue Line to Lynn. Does it really need to be extended all the way to Beverly, given the single-track tunnel in Salem? Some trains would have to terminate before the line goes to one track, probably at Swampscott. Couldn't they just run more frequent Commuter Rail service to Beverly?

Another problem would be how would they get the CR equipment to BET and such? You'd have to have locos and sets dedicated to that side, essentially creating a whole new third side? So that means another maintenance facility and everything. And when you DO rotate equipment around, you'd have to share it with the blue line, or wait until night to make the move on the blue line.

Well, fortunately I think we've (the state as a whole) abandoned the notion of curtailing commuter rail lines at outlying subway stations. Regardless of equipment maintenance moves and overloading the subway lines, it's just a plain bad idea from a commuter's standpoint. It would basically have been the death blow for north shore commuter rail service to force a transfer to subway 20 miles from Boston. One of those "no one bothered to ask the riders what they'd want" plans!

Exactly. I really don't think there's a need to run the Blue Line all the way to Beverly with commuter rail terminating there. It will inconvenience riders from outlying North Shore areas who will lose their direct access to Boston. Wasn't there a similar plan to extend Red Line service further down the South Shore, to Brockton? If so, thankfully it never happened.