mbrproductions wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2023 2:29 pm
The problem there is the cost of putting up said catenary to run them in the first place, which is so expensive that by that point, you might as well expand your budget and buy brand new Electric Locomotives instead of extensively rebuilding Diesel-Electrics and only likely have them run like crap.
If they did some retrofits, they could start running electric MBTA trains on some lines right now thanks to the amtrak overhead that's already in place. I'm not sure how many southern lines have overhead wires, being a north-sider, honestly the mbta map of the south side lines still confuses me and I don't even know what's what.
But still even if they retrofitted a couple of locos to be hybrid and ran those as electrics on even just one line.... one is better than nothing. My thinking is, doing a little bit at a time and keep working at it and eventually you can get everything done. I know this generally isn't how government thinking works.
mbrproductions wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2023 2:29 pm
If Urbanists have such a massive problem with Highways cutting through cities (which is a valid concern), surely they would have a similar gripe if Railroads did the same thing.
Maybe it is the railfan in me but I feel like a ground level rail link would be significantly less offensive than a fixed elevated highway. The trains would be much quieter (although not quieter since MBTA puts square wheels on all their trains) than the high, the highway is always there and always loud, 24 hours a day. Trains come and go. Probably no more than 30 or 40 mph. It would be significantly less abrasive to city life. There would still have been room for a lot of parkland too. If you had two tracks connecting the two, and strip parks on either side. I dunno, seems like a great solution to me but they didn't put me in charge of it so *shrug*