4 tracking of the Eastern Route

Did the B&M, either on their own or under the control of the NH, consider expanding the ROW, particularly between North Station and Lynn? The Saugus drawbridge piers extend an extra 2 track lengths wide and the station/approaches did have/did have room for at least 4 tracks. Not to mention the station at Chelsea appears to have had a wider ROW at one time or another.

I believe North Station at one time had 4 draws with 2 tracks each, meaning an 8 track throat before the fire back in the 80s.

Yes, in the early 20th century the B&M anticipated four-tracking the Eastern Route at least as far as Lynn by building some bridge abutments four tracks wide. The New Haven RR did the same thing with some bridges on the Shore Line east of New Haven. But neither ever happened since railroad building/expansion basically came to an end after World War I and shrinkage began ten years later in the Depression.

I believe North Station at one time had 4 draws with 2 tracks each, meaning an 8 track throat before the fire back in the 80s.

There were indeed originally four double track drawbridges at North Station, but the two that are now missing were removed in the 1950s, not after the early-1980s fire.

The extra width of the roadbed in the Chelsea area was due to the fact the B&A Grand Junction branch to East Boston ran next to the B&M from the Boston Engine terminal area to where is went east over the draw bridge on the Chelsea Creek (3 tracks wide) after the falure of the draw bridge, the B&A was granted trackage rights on the B&M up to the B&Ms East Boston branch. As the extra track became redundant do to the trackage rights they were not used. If you look close you can see bits and pieces of the remains of the branch sill in place.
There was also a long siding on the other side of the B&M main that made the track (4 tracks wide) In this area.

Peter

ROW remains 4-track width from the Lynn side of Saugus draw up to Swampscott and the former junction with the Marblehead Branch, with the aforementioned double-wide abutment provisioning on Saugus Draw and on the Revere-side approach from the former BRB&L junction (only 2-track width south of there). The only non- 4-track bridges are Chatham St. Lynn (which has abutments provisioned for 2 extra decks) and Burrill St. Swampscott at the station, which is a newer-construction bridge. And then Lynn and Swampscott stations themselves eat up some 4-track space. A little reworking of the cut in Swampscott past the station around property lines would also allow for 4-tracking all the way to Castle Hill Yard in Salem, since the trip from there is mostly just through barren preservation land and the road overpasses are all wide enough.

Blue Line past Lynn to Salem is an MPO-rated expansion project officially listed on the state's last comprehensive Program for Mass Transit (2003 ed.). Google it "Boston PMT". Ridership figures and 2003-dollar costs and all for the build beyond Lynn. If they get to Lynn in the first place the ROW width makes it a relatively pain- and land-taking- free future second phase to bring rapid transit to south-of-portal Salem. Impressive ridership projections in the report, though obviously it's all theoretical and in realm of deep-future fantasy as long as Blue to Lynn remains unbuilt.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:
Blue Line past Lynn to Salem is an MPO-rated expansion project officially listed on the state's last comprehensive Program for Mass Transit (2003 ed.). Google it "Boston PMT".

Unfortunately, the 2003 PMT was recently taken offline when Central Transportation Planning Staff redid their site. I didn't think to download the PDF copy beforehand, unfortunately; did anyone else happen to?

The EGE wrote:

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:
Blue Line past Lynn to Salem is an MPO-rated expansion project officially listed on the state's last comprehensive Program for Mass Transit (2003 ed.). Google it "Boston PMT".

Unfortunately, the 2003 PMT was recently taken offline when Central Transportation Planning Staff redid their site. I didn't think to download the PDF copy beforehand, unfortunately; did anyone else happen to?

Web Archive took a snapshot. You can grab all the docs from here: http://web.archive.org/web/200906220632 ... ld/pmt.htm. Or individually, if those links aren't working:

http://web.archive.org/web/201202200634 ... /PMT-1.pdf
http://web.archive.org/web/201202200628 ... /PMT-2.pdf
http://web.archive.org/web/201202061310 ... /PMT-3.pdf <--- (p. 35 has the Blue-Salem proposal)
http://web.archive.org/web/201202200631 ... /PMT-4.pdf
http://web.archive.org/web/201202200635 ... /PMT-5.pdf
http://web.archive.org/web/201202200633 ... /PMT-6.pdf
http://web.archive.org/web/201202200641 ... /PMT-7.pdf
http://web.archive.org/web/201202200634 ... /PMT-8.pdf
http://web.archive.org/web/201202200631 ... pendix.pdf

Thanks a ton - I had the old cpts.org link which wasn't archived. I've now assembled the complete document if anyone wants it.

Here's a 1915 article discussing the track elevation at Lynn the previous year. After taking over the B&M briefly, the New Haven intended to 4-track all the way to the branch splits at Salem and Beverly. However, they abandoned this project due to cost - the Chelsea grade crossings and the Salem tunnel (sound familiar) were expensive problems. I'm guessing the plan was to be integrated with this tunnel under the Harbor.

Ultimately the only four-tracking completed was the station itself, which had a pair of (still extant) island platforms. Very New Haven style. Lots of 4-track bridges in West Lynn, though, that never saw 4 mainline tracks.

Wasn't there also some talk of electrifying some parts of the B&M in eastern Massachusetts during those days of joint B&M-NH ownership? My increasingly ancient brain tells me that I read this somewhere once.

I haven't seen any discussion of electrifying the B&M, though that's certainly not out of the question. The New Haven had Back Bay and South Station built for electrified suburban service, and that tunnel would have certainly required it.

The New Haven never actually did much towards electrification in Boston, actually - they had the Nantasket Beach line under trolley operation from 1895 to 1932, with some of the South Shore line with brief electric service between Braintree and Cohasset from about 1898 to 1906.

Lynn did see electric service - the BRB&L was successfully electrified in 1928, but the poor timing of the depression eventually killed it.

The NYC actually strongly considered electrifying the Worcester main as far as Framingham, as well as the Highland Branch, in 1911. They decided that the cost wasn't worth the savings. The Newton Lower Falls branch was electrified as a trolley from 1904 to 1930, though.