Boston Surface Railroad: Worcester-Providence Commuter Rail

Ridgefielder wrote:And after all, there's plenty of precedent for railroads with let's say "aspirational" names. The Minneapolis & St. Louis never got to St. Louis, the New York, Chicago & St. Louis only went as far east as Buffalo, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific gave up in the middle of the New Mexico desert...

And for a New England example, the Belfast & Moosehead Lake never got to its namesake lake.

I continue to wonder if this "proposal" is legitimate. From the Investors tab on the Boston Surface Railroad web site (http://www.bsrc.com/investors/):

The company principals have committed $3 million as a mixture of cash and personally guaranteed debt for the initial feasibility study, civil engineering, software development and infrastructure improvements needed for a pilot project.

Additionally the company is exploring the issuance of convertible notes for additional capital and operating expenses if needed in phase 3. Interested parties should download the Investor Suitability and Confidentiality Agreement below, complete and fax or mail to:

Boston Surface Railroad Company, Inc.

Clicking on the Agreement link produces a two page doc that says little about the expectation that an investor might make money. Rather it focuses on whether investor can afford to give money:

By checking one of the boxes set forth below, the undersigned represents and warrants to the Company that
the undersigned is an Accredited Investor by reason of the qualifications described
opposite the check box:

_Any natural person whose net worth, or joint net worth with that person’s spouse at
the time of the purchase exceeds $1,000,000 exclusive of such person’s principal
residence; and/or;

_Any natural person who had an individual income in excess of $200,000 in each of the
two most recent years or joint income with that person’s spouse in excess of $300,000
in each of those years and has a reasonable expectation of reaching the same income
level in the current year.

johnpbarlow wrote:Clicking on the Agreement link produces a two page doc that says little about the expectation that an investor might make money. Rather it focuses on whether investor can afford to give money:

By checking one of the boxes set forth below, the undersigned represents and warrants to the Company that
the undersigned is an Accredited Investor by reason of the qualifications described
opposite the check box:

_Any natural person whose net worth, or joint net worth with that person’s spouse at
the time of the purchase exceeds $1,000,000 exclusive of such person’s principal
residence; and/or;

_Any natural person who had an individual income in excess of $200,000 in each of the
two most recent years or joint income with that person’s spouse in excess of $300,000
in each of those years and has a reasonable expectation of reaching the same income
level in the current year.

That's actually completely standard Securities Exchange Commission-mandated boilerplate for investors in non-registered securities. You'd be filling the same thing out to invest in a hedge fund, for instance. By law, non-"Qualified" investors can't even be provided with information on such an offering. If anything, that makes me more inclined to think they are legit.

As I mentioned before, in some thread, a station with a big parking garage at the intersection of the railroad, Rt 146 and the Mass Pike (exit 10A) might draw large crowds wanting a shuttle to the Worcester-Boston train.

At some point, they'd want something to prevent another company (or government agency) from swooping in and "stealing" their business. And since they have no assets, plan to contract for stuff, their business is their idea of this service, and any studies. Wonder if they have any contract with P&W.

That's the most worrying part. If they start running this - whether or not it makes any money - it will make it substantially more difficult to establish Providence-Woonsocket commuter rail service which is currently the #2 item on the RIDOT hitlist after Kingston/maybe Westerly.

Rockingham Racer wrote:I believe a second platform is part of increased Amtrak service via the Inland Route.

Sort of. Inlands + increasing MBTA service means they're going to reinstate the island platform next to the current platform track. Used to exist there at the old station, which is why the next track is spaced so conspicuously wide from the platform track. That's always been a future necessity once cumulative passenger service exceeded a certain threshold, and with the Worcester Line slated to get increasing reverse-commute schedules as it scales up they'll need the second berth for juggling more simultaneous bi-directional platform arrivals. It's tight scheduling as-is, so a second berth will be non-optional after another 5 years of incremental bumps in frequencies.


^That^ is not related at all to this P&W commuter rail scheme. This service would have to stay entirely on P&W's tracks because this guy almost certainly can't afford to insure himself to cross into MBTA/CSX territory, much less equip his mythical locomotives with the cab signal equipment required to enter the current platform. So staying exclusively on P&W's tracks means building a mini-high or something cheap on the Gardner Branch side of the station, not the Worcester Line side.

The bigger problem is where the Providence platform is going to go.
1) Amtrak owns the station and dispatches the NEC, and there is no way in hell risk-averse AMTK is going to allow a rinky-dink operation like this onto the NEC tracks. They would have to stay exclusively on the P&W FRIP track, which is considered non-AMTK and part of the P&W mainline until it merges in with the NEC at Atwells Interlocking about 3/4 mile south of the station.
2) Even if AMTK did allow him in he most definitely can't afford the insurance there, much less the cab signal + ACSES PTC units in mythical passenger locomotives.
3) The FRIP track passes straight through the station with no possible interface with a station platform or room alongside that track to place a dedicated platform. It was always designed to be a freight passer, not an expansion platform track.
4) There is no other place to let passengers off in Providence that stays entirely on P&W trackage except by the side of the road on the freight siding next to Atwells Interlocking. Then hoof it to the end of Harris Ave. and some pretty scuzzy industrial property to get on a bus. Or walk 3/4 mile to Providence Place and the station. Which is a compromise that makes this service quite very a lot less convenient.


And the dude is a scammer without any business footprint other than a P.O. Box. So...you know...chances of this ever happening are about 0.0000000000%. But I'm sure a different ProJo or Telegram reporter will get snookered into reprinting his snake-oil sales pitch verbatim once every 4 months until this thing runs its course. With the perfunctory noncommital statement from a P&W spokesflak saying they're always interested in hosting passenger service...while making no specific statement about this particular proposal other than vague hypotheticals about if in the event it's actually real. Which ignorant ProJo/Telegram reporter-of-the-week will take to mean "IT'S HAPPENING!", even though it's not.


Nothing to see here.

BandA wrote:At some point, they'd want something to prevent another company (or government agency) from swooping in and "stealing" their business. And since they have no assets, plan to contract for stuff, their business is their idea of this service, and any studies. Wonder if they have any contract with P&W.

Or maybe their business model is getting the service going and then hoping the MBTA will buy it from them..

v8interceptor wrote:

BandA wrote:At some point, they'd want something to prevent another company (or government agency) from swooping in and "stealing" their business. And since they have no assets, plan to contract for stuff, their business is their idea of this service, and any studies. Wonder if they have any contract with P&W.

Or maybe their business model is getting the service going and then hoping the MBTA will buy it from them..

I don't think that'll work. The MBTA wouldn't "buy" it if it's in any way successful. They might take it over if it goes belly up though. Certainly at no profit to the operators unless they somehow wheedled a contract to operate it, which I would doubt.

Are there any FCD Railbuses still around?

jaymac wrote:Are there any FCD Railbuses still around?

Well, there's the one at the Danbury Railroad Museum. I'm sure it could be brought up to current FRA standards for a few million bucks.

(Nice historical reference for this line, by the way!)

TomNelligan » Fri Sep 04, 2015 7:50 am
jaymac wrote:
Are there any FCD Railbuses still around?
Well, there's the one at the Danbury Railroad Museum. I'm sure it could be brought up to current FRA standards for a few million bucks.
(Nice historical reference for this line, by the way!)

You might be off by a decimal point or two, what used to be called -- in historical reference parlance -- slide-rule accuracy.

jaymac wrote:

TomNelligan » Fri Sep 04, 2015 7:50 am
jaymac wrote:
Are there any FCD Railbuses still around?
Well, there's the one at the Danbury Railroad Museum. I'm sure it could be brought up to current FRA standards for a few million bucks.
(Nice historical reference for this line, by the way!)

You might be off by a decimal point or two, what used to be called -- in historical reference parlance -- slide-rule accuracy.

Learn something new every day! Add that to the what could have/should have been.

[OT] This type of non-FRA vehicle would be great to see also, from "JRHokkaidoDualModeVehicle" by Nekosuki600 - 画像:画像-JRHokkaidoDualModeVehicle-mod.jpg on Japanese Wikipedia by GFDL. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... ehicle.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This vehicle should be inexpensive and wouldn't require any wye to turn it at Worcester or Providence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOpLnqWtdPQ

But as I was vacationing in Quebec City last week, I was surprised to discover the "Le Massif" excursion operation that uses Deutsche Bahn DMUs along the St Lawrence River:

http://www.lemassif.com/en/train

johnpbarlow wrote:But as I was vacationing in Quebec City last week, I was surprised to discover the "Le Massif" excursion operation that uses Deutsche Bahn DMUs along the St Lawrence River:

http://www.lemassif.com/en/train

Our good neighbors to the north have somewhat less restrictive crash standards than the FRA. That's how VIA can operate the Ocean with British-built sleepers originally designed for London-Paris service.