Eliminate an Red Line Branch?

RailBus63 wrote:The lack of an express track was an unfortunate miscalculation on the part of the designers of the Cambridge-Dorchester line. Express service on New York's IRT subway was a success right from the start in 1904 and could have been an inspiration. The ability to operate express from Andrew northbound would have made a lot of sense even back then, and the tunnel is deep enough at least to Park Street that they should have been able to accommodate a third track and express stations without issue. It's too bad they were so limited by the design of the Longfellow Bridge, because otherwise they could have dug deeper under Main Street and Mass. Avenue if necessary to get the additional space needed and had express service all the way from Andrew to Harvard. It would then have been pretty simple to rebuild the line from Andrew south to the Flying Junction in the 1960's to allow grade-separated access from the South Shore and Dorchester lines. Talk about your what-if's ...

To some extent the comparison with NYC is apples and oranges. In NY you have a long narrow very densely populated island with numerous stops from the outlying areas in Brooklyn/Bronx/Queens to destinations in midtown/downtown. OTOH in Boston running express Andrew to Park only misses 3 stops, hardly worth worrying about, also means passengers for DTX and SS have to change at Andrew.

Also you have the Commuter Rail serving as express service to some extent especially for the South Shore and also somewhat for Dorchester especially once additional stations are added e.g. Mattapan.

Jon

Exactly. This is why I think the T doesn't need express tracks on its subway lines. They aren't as long as NYC subway lines are and downtown Boston isn't linear like Manhattan is. So trips on the T to downtown Boston don't take as long as taking a long local NYC subway line into Manhattan (e.g. the F train from Brooklyn to Midtown Manhattan, the R train from Queens to Downtown Brooklyn, the 1 train from the Bronx to Lower Manhattan, etc) On the other hand, I don't think the Red Line should be extended any further north or south or it will take a long time to get to Downtown Boston or Back Bay. Similarly, I don't think the Orange Line should be extended to Reading for the same reason.

To keep this on topic, I don't believe either of the Red Line's branches should be eliminated. Now that the Red Line goes to Quincy and Braintree and has been for many years, you can't get rid of the South Shore Branch. As for the Ashmont branch, it's bad enough that the Fairmount CR line runs through Dorchester and Mattapan with very limited service and very few places to get on, forcing many commuters to pack onto the buses in the area then jam onto the Red or Orange lines. Getting rid of Ashmont would only exacerbate the problem with overcrowded buses.

What if the remaining section of the Ashmont Branch was converted to be part of the High-speed line? The loss of a one seat ride to Boston could be compensated by rapid transit service on the Fairmount Line, and South Shore service frequencies could be doubled.

That would require rebuilding every station from Mattapan to JFK/UMass, buying enough articulated LRVs to operate 3-car trains during rush hour on headways that match the Red Line, and building a new maintenance facility for those LRVs. And service would probably be noticeably degraded over what it is now.

Can we just kill this topic already? It was a really dumb half-baked idea now can we just let it drop?

itszjay wrote:When I travel on the Red Line, headway is longer because of the 2 Branch. Would it be better to eliminate one of the Branch, and rename the other branch as a new line for future extension. Would this make the headway better?

No.

-otto-

I'm not sure which topic is the more idiotic- this one or the "favorite color for a line " one that's running neck and neck with it. Hey- I have an idea ! Why don't we have one of those old fashioined spectacles like they used to have whereby two locomotives run towards each other and collide head-on in a steamy explosion ! Instead of using locos, we'll use these two threads !!!

3rdrail wrote:I'm not sure which topic is the more idiotic- this one or the "favorite color for a line " one that's running neck and neck with it. Hey- I have an idea ! Why don't we have one of those old fashioined spectacles like they used to have whereby two locomotives run towards each other and collide head-on in a steamy explosion ! Instead of using locos, we'll use these two threads !!!

Maybe we can conduct this on the Ashmont branch so the OP gets his wish, too!

3rdrail wrote:I'm not sure which topic is the more idiotic- this one or the "favorite color for a line " one that's running neck and neck with it. Hey- I have an idea ! Why don't we have one of those old fashioined spectacles like they used to have whereby two locomotives run towards each other and collide head-on in a steamy explosion ! Instead of using locos, we'll use these two threads !!!

There is a much more modern way of resolving this, and boy is it a train wreck!

MBTA3247 wrote:

3rdrail wrote:I'm not sure which topic is the more idiotic- this one or the "favorite color for a line " one that's running neck and neck with it. Hey- I have an idea ! Why don't we have one of those old fashioined spectacles like they used to have whereby two locomotives run towards each other and collide head-on in a steamy explosion ! Instead of using locos, we'll use these two threads !!!

There is a much more modern way of resolving this, and boy is it a train wreck!

Thanks a lot, 3247! I'm not going to admit how much time I just spent on that fight site!

MBTA3247 wrote:That would require rebuilding every station from Mattapan to JFK/UMass, buying enough articulated LRVs to operate 3-car trains during rush hour on headways that match the Red Line, and building a new maintenance facility for those LRVs. And service would probably be noticeably degraded over what it is now.

I've always been curious why the Red Line isn't full on rapid transit from Ashmont to Mattapan? Instead of the PCC's, have the Red Line heavy rail subways run all the way to Mattapan instead of terminating at Ashmont?

Veristek wrote:

MBTA3247 wrote:That would require rebuilding every station from Mattapan to JFK/UMass, buying enough articulated LRVs to operate 3-car trains during rush hour on headways that match the Red Line, and building a new maintenance facility for those LRVs. And service would probably be noticeably degraded over what it is now.

I've always been curious why the Red Line isn't full on rapid transit from Ashmont to Mattapan? Instead of the PCC's, have the Red Line heavy rail subways run all the way to Mattapan instead of terminating at Ashmont?

Always been a major bone to pick with Milton commuters if most of the intermediary stations got eliminated as they'd have to be, so the obstacles posed by public opposition always kept conversion below the demand threshold. It comes up every couple decades and never progresses further than that. Rapid-transitizing the Fairmount might bring it back into public debate for another round if the ridership really increases, but I think commuters on the High Speed Line would feel better served by a stub extension to the new Blue Hill station for direct transfers and a Silver Line branch down Blue Hill Ave. replacing the awful 28 and giving better connection to the Fairmount and High Speed Line.

In other words, can't see it rising on the priority list as long as there are small-scale connection improvements that could be more readily made to Mattapan Square.