Fitchburg Line Upgrade Discussion

There will always be a glitch or 2 when cutting over new signals,interlockings,and their control systems,no matter how well planned
or tested before use,to any exisiting system. if any of this is shared with PAR,then you are dealing with 2 exisiting, but different
signal systems setups.

Bob Sprague photographed the first T train to operate on the Wachusett station track on 9/24/16:

http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... toindex=-1

Service will start Friday with two (mostly useless) round trips. Schedule here. Wachusett departures at 8 am and 5:22 pm; North Station departures at 6:30 am and 3:30 pm. No weekend service yet.

by The EGE » Mon Sep 26, 2016 8:53 am
Service will start Friday with two (mostly useless) round trips.

T and K upper management, not to mention the fabled Corner Office, are probably delighted because of meeting the hyperextended deadline. One advantage to the short-term futility of scheduling is providing a work-window for the more-than-punch-list agenda at 330, 333, 334, and 335, at least as of earlier on 09-26. Another is finding things to be debugged.
10 minutes for 3+ miles? Hopefully 5 minutes when all is sorted out...

Right now it's 8 minutes inbound and ten outbound for 4.1 miles between the stations. That includes a station track that's been in place less than a week, plus possibly unfinished bridge and track work between the two stations, and the extra two minutes outbound is probably padding as much as anything. 4.1 miles in 8 minutes is 31 mph; even dropping it to 7 minutes gets you to 35 mph - about the average speed for the whole system.

The EGE wrote:Service will start Friday with two (mostly useless) round trips. Schedule here. Wachusett departures at 8 am and 5:22 pm; North Station departures at 6:30 am and 3:30 pm. No weekend service yet.

This schedule does permit one to travel to Wachusett and spend the day! There is a new Honey Farms with a Dunkies and a Nathan's!

OT: How soon before Pan Am can park trains at Wachusett once again? Or is that already happening?

by johnpbarlow » Mon Sep 26, 2016 11:21 am
...OT: How soon before Pan Am can park trains at Wachusett once again? Or is that already happening?

At least during the times I'm near there, haven't seen or heard about it yet. I'm guessing it won't be until the project is complete. As an outside observer, it seems like 1 between CPF-330 and CPF-335 and 2 between CPF-330 and CPF-FG would be the recrew/tie-down candidates once all is in place. EBs had been holding on 1 at CPF-GL during commuter activity, but 1 will need to be clear west to at least CPF-330 for any Extension EBs and WBs stopping at Fitchburg. 2 at 335 will need to be kept fluid for access to and from the Station Track, and 2 down to CPF-330 will probably be the default track for commuters, unless the scheduling powers decide to move meet movements out west.

I suppose visits to Dunks and/or Nathan's might be canceled out by a day's worth of power-walks along the platform.

Wasn't a project dependency supposed to be extending the Gardner double-track another mile or so east to address this very dilemma? Or did Pan Am decline that option to avoid making a matching contribution on something they felt was too small-potatoes to pursue? My memory is hazy here, but I seem to recall there being mitigation double-tracking that came on and off the project board during the evolution of this project.

The original proposal did call for extending -- re-extending -- 2 east from CPF-345 out to approximately MP-341. That got changed sometime back -- mebbe 2 or 3 years ago -- for new signaling at CPF-345 and CPF-346, in place, but not yet live. The CPF-345 EL does contain heads for both the current single and for the Dead Track, the stub of old 2 that runs a bit west of the Pearson Boulevard UGB, so mebbe the Dead will see some work for use as mebbe an FI-1/2 tie-down spot or a set-out track or even power storage.

The new Wachusett station's parking lot ascends from Authority Drive to, quite literally, a drop-off area that affords a magnificent view to the tracks and platform in the canyon far below. I can imagine how challenging the long pedestrian ramps to the boarding area could become in winter. Why didn't the plans call for a more level approach to the platform?

I've now succeeded in using 55 Authority Road, Fitchburg as the address for the new Wachusett station on Mapquest to check on the distance from it to a few nearby points.

it's only 2.2 miles from the Wachusett Brewery at 175 State Road East in Westminster and 2.7 miles from the SS Lobster Co. at 691 River Street in West Fitchburg. If the full service starting in November includes weekend trains that stop at South Acton, West Concord and Concord I might make an expedition from one of those stations to at least one of those attractive destinations via the train to Wachusett on a Saturday. The brewery has tours, and the lobster place has quite a good seafood restaurant.

Unfortunately, Shepaug Railroad Company at 23 Westminster Street in [South] Ashburnham is 6.9 miles from the station . I quite often walk that far in a day, but twice that seems like a bit much.

If you could get off at the 335 lot, it'd be a 5-minute walk to the brewery. Add 10+ for the layover facility.

Kilo Echo wrote:The new Wachusett station's parking lot ascends from Authority Drive to, quite literally, a drop-off area that affords a magnificent view to the tracks and platform in the canyon far below. I can imagine how challenging the long pedestrian ramps to the boarding area could become in winter. Why didn't the plans call for a more level approach to the platform?

Gee, whaddaya expect for a mere $93.5 million for 5 miles and 8+ years?

Let's not forget that for $126 million, or $32.5 million more, G&W was able to purchase all the assets of the P&W, i.e. right-of-way, track, rolling stock, facilities and real estate. P&W owns 160 miles of track and long-term operating agreements to access an additional 350 miles of track.

"it's only 2.2 miles from the Wachusett Brewery at 175 State Road East in Westminster and 2.7 miles from the SS Lobster Co. at 691 River Street in West Fitchburg. If the full service starting in November includes weekend trains that stop at South Acton, West Concord and Concord I might make an expedition from one of those stations to at least one of those attractive destinations via the train to Wachusett on a Saturday. The brewery has tours, and the lobster place has quite a good seafood restaurant."

True, there is a first time for everything...but this has to be the first time "attractive destination" was used to describe/include "SS Lobster Co. at 691 River Street in West Fitchburg."

True, there is a first time for everything...but this has to be the first time "attractive destination" was used to describe/include "SS Lobster Co. at 691 River Street in West Fitchburg."

The ambiance is like a diner, but the seafood makes up for it.
Jon

Wachusett station opened on schedule this morning. Four of us hardy souls rode the 6:30am outbound from Boston; about 20 politicians and other folks (including at least one other RR.net member) got on at Fitchburg. A lot of Pan Am and Keolis staff looked very nervous the whole time.





The train kept between 50 and 55 mph until about a half mile from Wachusett, then crawled into the station on time. Once the crossovers and station track are fully ready, it could easily be 5-6 minutes timetabled.