Elcamo wrote:Rereading through the thread, and I saw lots of posts regarding terminating CR at Beverly and having the Blue line take over the ROW....So how would the MBTA get CR equipment to the maintenance facility?
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Blue Line Extension ROW
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diburning wrote:That proposal was being kicked around in the 1950's, I believe. It hasn't been touched since. It included a small shop near Beverly Depot. I believe where the siding is just north of the depot.Elcamo wrote:Rereading through the thread, and I saw lots of posts regarding terminating CR at Beverly and having the Blue line take over the ROW....So how would the MBTA get CR equipment to the maintenance facility?
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Rapid transit is probably a lot slower than commuter rail, especially the ones that run express from Salem. No way making everybody ride super-local from Beverly to downtown would fly today.
When that proposal was made, it was probably with the intention of discontinuing the services beyond Beverly entirely after a few years. Remember, there were times where Ipswich and Manchester were the termini; if the Blue Line covered the big ridership areas at Salem, Beverly, and Lynn, there would have been little reason to continue CR service to the smaller cities.
When that proposal was made, it was probably with the intention of discontinuing the services beyond Beverly entirely after a few years. Remember, there were times where Ipswich and Manchester were the termini; if the Blue Line covered the big ridership areas at Salem, Beverly, and Lynn, there would have been little reason to continue CR service to the smaller cities.
I don't see this extension ever happening, honestly. I think that there SHOULD be a Revere stop on the Eastern Line.
diburning wrote:That was one of the problems I had with it becoming solely blue line too, it would have to fit under catenary somehow or be shipped to BET for really bad problems. A facility in Beverly could've been built, but it would have been expensive as the mbta doesn't own much lane there already, and I bet the city would fight it really hard too.Elcamo wrote:Rereading through the thread, and I saw lots of posts regarding terminating CR at Beverly and having the Blue line take over the ROW....So how would the MBTA get CR equipment to the maintenance facility?
Beverly is a bit far. It's outside of the MBTA bus district, so there's not a whole lot to transfer to out there.
BL to South Salem--after Lynn is built sometime in our great grandchildren's lifetime--is an MPO-rated project. Eastern Route is 4-track width from the Lynn side of the river all the way to the southerly portal of the tunnel, and the very seldom-used Pan Am yard is an ideal place to plunk down a maint facility. Look at the 2003 Program for Mass Transportation. The ridership projections are insane. Lynn alone isn't enough to satiate the North Shore transit demand...and yet here we still are 60 years later wondering when the hell they're going to stop screwing around and get that far. Really...if it weren't for institutional self-loathing the drumbeat for rapid transit to Salem would be reaching fever pitch by now.
BL to South Salem--after Lynn is built sometime in our great grandchildren's lifetime--is an MPO-rated project. Eastern Route is 4-track width from the Lynn side of the river all the way to the southerly portal of the tunnel, and the very seldom-used Pan Am yard is an ideal place to plunk down a maint facility. Look at the 2003 Program for Mass Transportation. The ridership projections are insane. Lynn alone isn't enough to satiate the North Shore transit demand...and yet here we still are 60 years later wondering when the hell they're going to stop screwing around and get that far. Really...if it weren't for institutional self-loathing the drumbeat for rapid transit to Salem would be reaching fever pitch by now.
F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:Beverly is a bit far. It's outside of the MBTA bus district, so there's not a whole lot to transfer to out there.Blue Line 15+ miles to Salem? That would be a fun ride. That distance is better off served by Commuter Rail.
BL to South Salem--after Lynn is built sometime in our great grandchildren's lifetime--is an MPO-rated project. Eastern Route is 4-track width from the Lynn side of the river all the way to the southerly portal of the tunnel, and the very seldom-used Pan Am yard is an ideal place to plunk down a maint facility. Look at the 2003 Program for Mass Transportation. The ridership projections are insane. Lynn alone isn't enough to satiate the North Shore transit demand...and yet here we still are 60 years later wondering when the hell they're going to stop screwing around and get that far. Really...if it weren't for institutional self-loathing the drumbeat for rapid transit to Salem would be reaching fever pitch by now.
It's no worse of a ride than Alewife to Braintree.
The Blue Line's equipment can't go as fast as the Red Line's - ~40 MPH vs. 55 MPH (I saw that routinely on speedos in the '70s and '80s). This might be fixable if you got rid of the Bowdoin loop, but there may be other built-into-tunnels reasons. I posted some time back about likely trip times from Lynn: probably 30 min., based on the current 19. min from Wonderland to Government Center. The B&M got to North Station (not quite the same location) in 17 min. and MBCR presently does it in 23 min.
Terminating the commuter service in Beverly was a sounder idea in the 1950s, when equipment could reach the shops (BIllerica) via Portsmouth or Danvers - Wakefield (if there was a freight connection from Peabody to Beverly, so Parker Bros. and the Gulf terminal could still be served).
Terminating the commuter service in Beverly was a sounder idea in the 1950s, when equipment could reach the shops (BIllerica) via Portsmouth or Danvers - Wakefield (if there was a freight connection from Peabody to Beverly, so Parker Bros. and the Gulf terminal could still be served).
Red Line is 50MPH only on the Braintree extension, and I'm not so sure that they even do that now. From what I've seen, they're doing 39-40 usually.
Because of stop spacing, the trains probably won't hit the top speed and hold it there for long. The 0700s seem to accelerate faster than the red line equipment, possibly due to weight and from the blue line having smaller equipment.
Because of stop spacing, the trains probably won't hit the top speed and hold it there for long. The 0700s seem to accelerate faster than the red line equipment, possibly due to weight and from the blue line having smaller equipment.
Last edited by diburning on Thu Sep 06, 2012 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The MBTA lines are set up as purely subway equipment, not semi-commuter equipment like the DC Metro. If you want longer than 10 mile trips on rapid transit, you need commuter-style cars.
The longest heavy-rail-only inbound rides you currently get are from Braintree (28 minutes) and Wonderland (21 minutes), and neither are particularly fun. (Nobody's actually going to ride Alewife-Braintree.)
Even if there's no Point of Pines or West Lynn stop, the 4.5 miles Wonderland-Lynn will take 6 to 7 minutes, putting you at 28 minutes to GC already. Another 5 miles to South Salem, with Swampscott and maybe a second Lynn stop, and you're looking at 40+ minutes to downtown. That's pretty miserable, but because the Eastern Route has so many ridiculous speed restrictions, it's actually pretty close to time-competitive.
So if you upgrade the Blue Line to faster (60mph capable) and comfortable equipment, you could run 35 minute service from South Salem, about the same as the longest Metro inbound trips. Then you reduce the Eastern Route to stops at Salem, Lynn, and Chelsea and maybe you can get travel times down to something like 22-23 minutes from Salem. Make Lynn your big transfer station between the Blue Line and the CR.
The longest heavy-rail-only inbound rides you currently get are from Braintree (28 minutes) and Wonderland (21 minutes), and neither are particularly fun. (Nobody's actually going to ride Alewife-Braintree.)
Even if there's no Point of Pines or West Lynn stop, the 4.5 miles Wonderland-Lynn will take 6 to 7 minutes, putting you at 28 minutes to GC already. Another 5 miles to South Salem, with Swampscott and maybe a second Lynn stop, and you're looking at 40+ minutes to downtown. That's pretty miserable, but because the Eastern Route has so many ridiculous speed restrictions, it's actually pretty close to time-competitive.
So if you upgrade the Blue Line to faster (60mph capable) and comfortable equipment, you could run 35 minute service from South Salem, about the same as the longest Metro inbound trips. Then you reduce the Eastern Route to stops at Salem, Lynn, and Chelsea and maybe you can get travel times down to something like 22-23 minutes from Salem. Make Lynn your big transfer station between the Blue Line and the CR.
The EGE wrote:The MBTA lines are set up as purely subway equipment, not semi-commuter equipment like the DC Metro. If you want longer than 10 mile trips on rapid transit, you need commuter-style cars.The Egg- Make 'em all "cattle cars"!!! hehehehe!!!
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Where I most often observed 55 MPH on a silverbird's digital speedo was between Central and Kendall.
Must have been recoded in the ATO system since then. They don't do a hair over 40 in the tunnels.
...and that's rare !
~Paul Joyce~
Moderator: Toy Trains, Model Railroading, Outdoor and Live Steam
Paul Joyce passed away in August, 2013. We honor his memory and his devotion at railroad.net.
Moderator: Toy Trains, Model Railroading, Outdoor and Live Steam
Paul Joyce passed away in August, 2013. We honor his memory and his devotion at railroad.net.