Haverhill Line Upgrades (Western Route)

Not much going on today. Ballast stockpiled on the E side of the RoW at Andover St. Turnout parts at JK (I-495). Track panels in front of the B&M-era Andover station. The contractors still have backfilling to do at the easterly Shawsheen bridge, but things are looking pretty much complete by LJ. They haven't taken their stuff off-site yet, though. After they removed the guardrail at WJ, I looked closer. The microwave tower looks like it's in the old EB's clearance diagram. So they'll either need to put a wow in the tracks around it, or remove it and its 8' square foundation.

I caught the express this afternoon, and despite two Brokems, the aisles were pretty full. So I walked back to the rear cab and extended/updated my project from last September: Fellsway underpass in Melrose to Washington St. in Haverhill.

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Picture quality is about what you'd expect from late in an overcast day, shooting through the center cab window, either through the mesh they put on the entrance door glazing or holding the door partly open. Features worth noting are the ongoing replacement of B&M-era searchlight signals W of Reading, contractors having removed everything but the dumpster & porta-potty from the LJ bridge and the wow in the easterly E of Andover St.

I don't see enough new grade crossing signal foundations at the station crossing in Andover to seriously expect the easterly to be connected during the upcoming weekend shutdown, but they might surprise me. More likely work at AS, maybe even doing something with the rusty turnout.

They've only installed one of the seemingly three needed signal bases at the Essex/Pearson crossing in Andover, which is starting to puzzle me. The highway VMS signs (facing away from the track) still indicated (as of a couple days ago) that those streets will be closed this coming Saturday and Sunday, at the crossing. The lack of prep to move the crossing signals makes me wonder if this weekend's shutdown (and the staged panel track) isn't for constructing the new eastbound main across the two streets, but simply for replacing the existing track and crossing.

This morning from 204 there appeared to be a decent sized MOW convention getting organized at the Lowell Jct staging area. Maybe we'll see some progress today.

jbvb,

Thanks for posting the extensive series of photographs depicting the improvements. It is all to easy to forget the scale of these projects when you don't travel by them very often. Good to see things moving forward. Even though its slow the benefits of all this work remain substantial and worth the trouble. Interesting to see how hard it can be to convert a single track railroad back to its legacy double track configuration. Obstructions in the way everywhere.

Not much advance notice on this one, but Western Route trains again bused Reading-Haverhill this weekend:

Because of track work Haverhill Line passengers will be bussed on Sat May 17 and Sun May 18 between Reading and Haverhill

Affected stops:
Reading
Ballardvale
Andover
Lawrence
Bradford
Haverhill

Last updated: May 15 2014 12:54 PM

Boy oh boy, this afternoon several loaders were delivered to the work site, Essex,Pearson street in Andover. The stage is set for this weekend load of work. Looks like prep work is done to move the crossing gates to the pre 1970's locations. Hoping that Monday morning train schedule will be back to normal!

Not to burst anyone's bubble, but (from afar) it looks like this weekend's work was only to replace the crossing on the existing track. The crossing signals are still where they've been. Looks like we'll be waiting a little longer for double track.

If the first section opens this year, it'll have only taken (I believe) five years since the welded rail was first dropped for the new track.

Festina lente! is what comes to mind: "Make haste slowly". An occasional post of mine since 2010

Yup - from the looks of it this morning, it was nothing more than replacement of the existing crossing. There are still two or three signal bases that have to be installed before the crossing signals located to the (geographic) east side of the single track can be moved. Perhaps there was some conduit work done during the weekend when the track was dug out, but no way to tell.

Having lived for over a year (some time ago) in view of that crossing, I'm somewhat worried about that intersection with the double track in place. Traffic coming down the hill on Pearson cannot see the other cars entering the intersection unless they stop on the tracks, and the presence of driveways and streets nearly on top of the crossing on both sides makes almost all moves through there tricky. I'm already envisioning the scenario where one train passes, gates start up, cars drive onto crossing only to have them go back down for a second train, and drivers get themselves stuck on the crossing.

Also, at the other end of Andover station, MassDOT is (still, started back around 2010) in the design process to replace the N Main St/Route 28 bridge over the railroad - this is the bridge immediately east of the station. The MassDOT project info gives no indication as to when this will actually go into construction, but it indicates there will be work on the abutments on both sides as well as replacement of the superstructure. Part of me is wondering if the second track through Andover is now waiting for that project.

I used to hang out at the old Andover station a long time ago. A gate tender was still employed there. That intersection is tricky, as you point out. If it's dangerous, I'd think that traffic signals, interlocked with the railroad, would solve the problem. It'll probably require an accident or two, though, before that happens.

I was watching some of the work being done at the Esses/Pearson Street crossing on Saturday. I asked one of the workers about the second track. He told me that there is a drain that is in the path of the new track and that the Andover DPW has to be involved in getting the drain moved. I looked on the east side of the crossing and I could see a drain grate located between Pearson and Essex streets. It's physically located behind the present crossing gate signal in the general area where the vertical "rail" posts are placed so people will not U turn between the two streets.

I believe there was also work done on the bridge in Haverhill this weekend to prepare for that project.

Reading the BSRA Rollsign with the 2013 equipment inventory, they mention the Haverhill bridge project, saying that it will be single track. But the working is ambiguous. Does anyone know for sure if that's 'single track during construction' or 'single track so the old trusses can support 286,000 lb. freight cars and taller freight cars'?

Single track during construction.

You really got to wonder about the glacial progress of this project. Hearing the same
thing over on the Fitchburg Route. Reduction in work crews and not much progress. A
whole weekend outage and there were no speed restrictions for trackwork changes.
Only new things were crossing appliance upgrades at Belknap & Sudbury Rd in Concord.
Darn, the whole line was out of service west of Brandeis to CPF-WL!

Is this due to the MBCR to Keolis transition?

D