CSX Fitchburg Secondary Discussion

Note that while the portion of the Ag Branch around Berlin and north has been rehabbed with 115lb CWR, from Southboro south to Framingham hasn’t been touched and the RoW is overgrown with weeds.

Also on occasion I see the return leg of the local parked near California Ave crossing near Bose Mountain in the morning - I guess the crew runs out of hours and can’t get the train yarded at N Framingham yard?

I've read before that some segment from Framingham north (not sure how far) had CWR installed a long time ago. Of course the rest of the roadbed may well be in poor condition and that sounds like the case if it is weed filled again.

I wonder if the actual CSX plan is to build a small yard at Worcester at Millbrook St to use for both P&W interchange and Ag Branch traffic via re-establishing the connection to the Worcester main at Clinton? As far as I can tell, there are no customers on the Ag Branch between Safety-Kleen at Marlborough and North Framingham Yard a distance of 6+ miles. Maybe CSX thinking is MBTA/MassDOT will buy this segment for a commuter rail extension between Framingham and Marlborough? CSX could just keep just the 14 miles or so of the Ag Branch between Leominster and Marlborough and service the half dozen or so customers via a local out of Worcester? Just speculation on my part.

That’s what I thought was likely when csx bought pan am. But all the track work south of Clinton suggests otherwise to me now

F74265A wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2024 7:44 pm I've read before that some segment from Framingham north (not sure how far) had CWR installed a long time ago. Of course the rest of the roadbed may well be in poor condition and that sounds like the case if it is weed filled again.

From North Framingham Yard through Southborough to Marlborough Junction (right around the Safety Kleen switch) is stick rail (~ 5 miles). This is fairly heavy jointed rail compared to what was on the rest of the line to the north.

Conrail installed CWR from Marlborough Junction to between the former Toys R Us warehouse and the Lyman Street overhead bridge in Northborough, I believe in the late 70s. From there, CSX laid CWR north this year and the end of the season last year (I do not know where they ended the CWR).

from the videos I've seen, I think the new CWR installation ends a bit north of the bridge over the worcester mainline. Don't know if the run around in clinton also got cwr. photos were posted here by somebody, maybe you, showing brand new 115 RE laid out and then installed across that bridge.

Nothing newsworthy here - just a little aerial railfanning: here's a capture from Google Earth of CSX L004 departing North Framingham on the Ag Branch for Leominster on Monday 5/13/23 with 12 empty gons for WIN Waste Innovations. According to the WIN Waste website, they operate three rail-served transload sites in Southern New England on two CSX lines radiating out of Framingham: Leominster, Taunton MA, and Brockton MA. Also WIN operates a CSX served a rail transload site at Milford CT (loads forwarded by CSOR to W Springfield yard) and a NYS&W served site at Paterson NJ, as well (I'm guessing the Susquehanna hauls these C&D loads to CSX interchange at Syracuse?).

Note that the Leominster transload site has its own Trackmobile critter to shunt cars around the facility.

Here are a few pictures of the south end of the Fitchburg secondary around the Maple St and Salem End Rd crossings between a couple miles north of North Framingham yard. The rail is all stick rail with one rail indicating it was 107lb forged at Bethlehem Steel Lackawanna in 1926. A few ties look to be newish but in general ties and stone should be rehabbed here. At the Maple St crossing, two guys wearing FRA visits were measuring track gauge.

Does anyone know roughly the new schedule for freight on this branch. Before all the track work this year I used to often see work at the lumber siding in Sterling/Lancaster on Tues and Thurs mid afternoon. Haven't seen that in a while.

Regarding the schedule, my observations from late August are that they return from Leominster on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. I generally hear them blowing for the Sterling St/route 62 and Deershorn Rd crossings in Lancaster anywhere from 8:30 to 9:50 pm.

ok, so it is clear that the south end of the line has sections in quite poor, overgrown condition.

The overgrown conditions in the north Framingham/Southborough area could be due in part to the proximity of the reservoirs. I don't think they're primary water supplies today--just backups--nonetheless I wouldn't be surprised if there were regulations against herbicide use in that area.

Maybe
But the wml through the wachusett reservoir area looks like a weed free mainline RR
Perhaps weed control in warershed areas is more expensive fand presently not worth it in framingham area

The Sudbury River is contaminated, and it would require a super emergency before they use those reservoirs again as a water supply. This was replaced by the Wachusett Reservoir and held as a "backup" water supply into the 2000s.

Ironically, DCR continues to drag their feet about allowing the Sudbury Aqueduct, unused for 100 years and officially decommissioned for about 20 years, to be used as a public trail!

https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteP ... 8#bkground

The Nyanza Chemical Waste Dump site is a 35-acre area next to an active industrial complex in Ashland, Massachusetts. From 1917 to 1978, facilities produced textile dyes, intermediates and other products on site. Nyanza Inc. operated on site from 1965 until 1978. Large volumes of industrial wastewater containing high levels of acids and numerous organic and inorganic chemicals, including mercury, were generated by these facilities, leading to soil and groundwater contamination. Over 45,000 tons of chemical sludges generated by Nyanza's wastewater treatment processes, along with spent solvents and other chemical wastes, were buried on site. The area that contained the largest amount of buried waste and exposed sludge is referred to as the Hill section.

Sudbury River: The remedy includes periodic fish tissue sampling to evaluate mercury concentrations, and institutional controls such as the posting and maintenance of fish consumption advisory signs in accessible areas along the Sudbury River in six communities..

Regardless of the weeds in the RoW, the 100 year old 107 lb stick rail could be replaced with 115lb CWR and lots of new ties could be installed along with ballast cleaning and/or new stone. At this moment, I see no such materials staged along the line in Southborough/Framingham while CSX is rehabbing many miles of less-trafficked ex-PAR branches in New Hampshire.