Boston Surface Railroad: Worcester-Providence Commuter Rail

I've been trying to understand their business model, which seems to be contracting out operations, buying or leasing everything for pennies on the dollar (lots of Iowa Pacific rolling stock is on the blocks, right?), signing cooperation or exclusivity deals with municipalities, and being more nimble than the MBTA. Being nimbler than the T is the only part that is easy.

Their chance of success was probably 1-10% of Brightline's and is less now since they have been radio silent.

Jeff Smith wrote: ↑Mon Jun 27, 2022 1:32 pm What does BSR stand for? Bullsh!t Railroad? LOL. If they want service, which makes sense, they should just contract it with P&W.

My impression, or at least the impression they gave, was that they were negotiating a plan with P&W when it was independent. When P&W was bought out by G&W, that apparently all fell apart and since then they've just become exceedingly strange.

Just wondering how long before Bono et al. finally call it quits..

NH secretary of state website shows them "not in good standing" as they haven't filed their 2022 annual report which was due on April 1. Again. At $100 + $50 late fee plus whatever he has to pay his registered agent, I guess he can keep doing this for a long time...

My question is: at this juncture, what is the point of continuing this, obviously ill advised exercise? Is there some hidden financial advantage?

Oh, their "Linked-in" page still shows them in the Woonsocket depot..

Even their first proposal ,way back, was a head scratcher ,3 commuter trips a day between Providence and Worcester ,with just a stop in Woonsocket RI in between . No indication if the service was for a Providence or a Worcester commute, with only 3 trips a day you can't have both. And I've lived in Woonsocket a few times over the years , not many residents commute to downtown Providence or Worcester. And then they really got weird proposing service to every medium sized city south of the Canadian border.

Douglasphil wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 1:01 pm Even their first proposal ,way back, was a head scratcher ,.

Yes, and the interim bus idea befuddled me. I'd have thought if there was money to be made on that, Peter Pan would've jumped on that decades ago..

Honesty and good communication are critical. And staying on top of the details. If they had started out with "hey we've got a great idea, we know it is a longshot but if we can make it happen it will be great for everybody" it would have gone better. Going radio silent when the going gets tough doesn't help either.

Of the segments proposed, WOR-PVD, Bedford NH-Lowell MA, Lowell MA to WOR the Bedford NH - Lowell fills a real need. There is a whole thread about it extending Commuter Rail to NH. NH wants it, too bad they can't subsidize it and the passengers don't want to pay MBTA's costs.

NNEPRA wants NYG-Portland?? Bar Harbor??. A group in CT wants Norwich-WOR service. MassDOT wants BOS-Albany, BOS-Adams, "knowledge corridor", etc. Not crazier than Southcoast Rail...

Hmmmm.. Site's down.. Server down? Or is this finally "it"?




Fri 09/16/2022 11:10 EDT Still down.

Either that or the heat-death of the universe ...

The Heat Death is here already? Dang, I thought we had at least another 1E106 years left. And I already made plans for November. Bummer .

The domain from Verizon Business is good through March. The domain name registrar is easydns.

The web address goes to a Verizon FIOS fixed address in Providence RI, so it wasn't hosted. Probably run on a desktop.