Orange Line questions

Actually they could just fill in the tunnels and run all 3 lines at level. It's probably more worth while and cheaper to just leave it the way it is but it does seem foolish to have all that infrastructure to satisfy a branch line which hasn't seen a train a significant amount of time (I don't know when it was last used), and will likely never see a train again.

The time to do it would seem to be if the tunnels ever require major repairs or rebuilding (assuming the Medford branch is abandoned by then) as F Line mentioned. Hopefully such work would include turning the freight track into a controlled siding for the railroad track to alleviate the long single track segment.

CRail wrote:Actually they could just fill in the tunnels and run all 3 lines at level. It's probably more worth while and cheaper to just leave it the way it is but it does seem foolish to have all that infrastructure to satisfy a branch line which hasn't seen a train a significant amount of time (I don't know when it was last used), and will likely never see a train again.

It was used at least once or twice last summer. Looks like the cold storage is still an active customer.

Interesting, good to know!

Does anyone know the approximate length of the South Cove tunnel in its present state? I was just imagining it as a little mini-layover/disabled train track. Even room for just 2 trains would be nifty, a southbound train could just be switch right out on it, or a northbound can just reverse and be shoved in. From what I recall from a Boston.com vid somewhere, the tunnel was in excellent condition, and I think the tracks may have even still been in place? I assume the tracks would need replacing though. But other than that, what do you have to do? Just knock out a wall and line up some switches?

That could also mean 2 more trains that could be ordered in the future. (maybe more, but I assume it's too short)

Does anyone know the approximate length of the South Cove tunnel in its present state?

Only South Cove tunnel I know of is the one built in the early 1970s which eventually connected the Orange Line Washington Street Tunnel to the new Southwest Corridor. It is a two track main line with no storage or siding tracks.

Do you mean the original routing which had once led to the Pleasant Street portal? I believe what little is left of it is now nothing more than a ventilation shaft.

jwhite07 wrote:

Does anyone know the approximate length of the South Cove tunnel in its present state?

Only South Cove tunnel I know of is the one built in the early 1970s which eventually connected the Orange Line Washington Street Tunnel to the new Southwest Corridor. It is a two track main line with no storage or siding tracks.

Do you mean the original routing which had once led to the Pleasant Street portal? I believe what little is left of it is now nothing more than a ventilation shaft.

Yes, I mean the tunnel which used to lead to the El.

Found the vid: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massac ... lt/?page=3

It only very briefly shows the end of tunnel so I can't tell how long it is. The rails are gone, and other than that it looks good.

I think that Urbey is referring to the old tunnel leading to the Essex Portal of the Washington Street Tunnel by Ash/Nassau Sts. I think that he's making a suggestion regarding connecting 1968's South Cove Tunnel to the abandoned section of the Washington Street Tunnel. It's a fairly short span and you can actually see where it breaks away from the newer South Cove Tunnel as you're headed outbound after Chinatown in the subway. Look on the left and you'll see the original wall move farther and farther away, and then suddenly, you're in the newer tunnel. I think that it's a great idea and one that I have been thinking about myself ever since that tie-up I wrote about yesterday when an Orange train became disabled (at Chinatown, no less !) and had to be slowly shoved back to Wellington, bringing everything in and outbound to a halt for a little while. I had thought then that this was a flaw in the system that unlike a RR, the MBTA has few sidings to drop a "bad order" onto, which can clear the main line immediately, with the bad order picked up late at night when the system shuts down. This would have been perfect. As Urbey has suggested, pretty much all that would be needed would be a switch. A few of these, strategically positioned, would be life-savers in the event of a down train, and get operations up and running in no time. I don't know what the length of the old tunnel is, but it's the fairly short length between approximately Kneeland and Nassau Sts. along Washington St., maybe @ 700-720 feet - perfect to drop two six-car Orange trains or one train and one parked rescue train out of the way.
http://photos.cityrails.net/showpic/?20 ... d&BOOL=ANY

Unfortunately, I don't think a connection at that junction is practical.
The current line is banked and, a switch would require a flat section
resulting in a permanent operational disadvantage. i also think the
remaining section is too short.
LS

Leo Sullivan wrote:Unfortunately, I don't think a connection at that junction is practical.
The current line is banked and, a switch would require a flat section
resulting in a permanent operational disadvantage. i also think the
remaining section is too short.
LS

If my estimate is correct, the Chinatown reverse-crossover is in the same location, so there must be some degree of suitability here.

Two questions about the Orange line, in the vicinity of State Street station:

1> If one stands on the northbound Orange Line platform at Downtown Crossing and looks down the track towards State Street, one can see a signal light that contains yellow-over-red signal (or red-over-red just after a trains passes it). On the southbound side of the Haymarket station, at the south end of the station, there is a similar signal. On the northbound side of the Haymarket station, there is a red-over-red signal at the south end of the station facing north (not in the normal direction of travel). Is there a crossover between Haymarket and State? I've never seen one on any track map. If there is not a crossover, what are these signals for?

2> Why are the northbound/southbound State Street stations so far apart? Surprsingly the southbound State Steet station is closer to the northbound Downtown Crossing station (200 feet) than it is to the northbound State Steet station (300 feet). If a 200 foot walkway were installed, one could walk about 1800 feet from the blue line to the red line.

#2 has been discussed briefly in the OL questions thread. It is thought that a walkway just isn't feasible as it would be too narrow, would go through the basement/foundation of a building, there's utilities in the way, or any combination of the 3. I like the idea because it would also make it possible to walk from City Hall/Quincy Market to Downtown or the Common without dealing with the weather.

My comment about a walkway was just a comment and not intended to spark a discussion of such a walkway. I just was wondering why the northbound and southbound State Street platforms are so far apart? The Orange line was built after the Blue line was in place. Why did they make a transfer between the Blue Line and Orange Line (southbound) so darn inconvenient?

Yellowspoon wrote:My comment about a walkway was just a comment and not intended to spark a discussion of such a walkway. I just was wondering why the northbound and southbound State Street platforms are so far apart? The Orange line was built after the Blue line was in place. Why did they make a transfer between the Blue Line and Orange Line (southbound) so darn inconvenient?

The NB and SB stations were originally separate stations. Additionally, back when the whole system was first built, access from East Boston to Roxbury/JP would have been a fairly unusual pattern. Access to/from EB didn't become important to the rest of the city until the age of air travel...

madcrow wrote:

Yellowspoon wrote:My comment about a walkway was just a comment and not intended to spark a discussion of such a walkway. I just was wondering why the northbound and southbound State Street platforms are so far apart? The Orange line was built after the Blue line was in place. Why did they make a transfer between the Blue Line and Orange Line (southbound) so darn inconvenient?

The NB and SB stations were originally separate stations. Additionally, back when the whole system was first built, access from East Boston to Roxbury/JP would have been a fairly unusual pattern. Access to/from EB didn't become important to the rest of the city until the age of air travel...

Yellowspoon - The (now) Orange Line State Street Station's, built as Main Line "Milk" and "State" Street Stations, were configured diagnolly as were most Washington Street Tunnel stations due to the Boston Transit Commission's attempt to dig around numerous building foundations and underground utilities already in place by the time that the digging started. (I think that of these stations , that Union/Friend is the only aligned one.) I have wondered why they used the reference "Milk Street", but I guess that it was a prominent street without a rapid transit stop of it's own and that it happened to be not to far away. "Court Street" would have been a better alternative, but as we know, it already was in use by the original East Boston Tunnel and not connected to the Main Line.

Madcrow - East Boston to Roxbury/JP may not have been a huge draw, but certainly the Downtown area, back and forth to East Boston was. Both of these areas were thriving and a regular morning and evening commute back and forth to work was very common, which relates to Yellowspoon's question regarding the connections at Milk and State. As regards your statement about East Boston's access only becoming important to the rest of the city until the age of air travel...that is simply not true as reported recently by Leo Sullivan using the MBTA's 2009 "spider map" in the "Blue Line to the Airport" thread.