What is up with PAR Ayer related delays?

There have been more than a normal amount of fowlings of the mainline cauing MBTA delays. Also I have seen a huge increase in Willows interlocking related delays.

There have been reports of my car or two on the ground here and there, but fowlings/interference have been ramping way up over the past couple months. We all know how frugal PAR is but I'm not sure this is financial or just a streak of ultra bad luck or even d3 prioritization towards freight.

Thoughts?

There appear to be spells when getting 206 and/or 22K yarded does seem more important than getting commuters to work. There are also spells when 206 or 22K gets held west of OX or clear of Slab City until the human cargos get east. The reverse move on East Wye eats up a good amount of time, so -- pure speculation -- PAR/S may be trying to convince the T of the wisdom of re-establishing a West Wye interlocking. It could also be that some crews were getting on short time, so instead of getting the AY-4 crews to do the yarding from a more remote point, the passengers get held while there's still time on the crews' clocks.

Are these MBTA delays primarily a morning rush hour phenomenon, when 206/22K often arrive? If so, there are only 5 inbound rush hour trains from Fitchburg with last rush train departing Ayer at 7:41AM. Two hours later MBTA's 1st outbound train, 417, passes through Ayer. Given the arrivals of 206 and 22K will eliminate track 2 as a through track for an hour or two, the MBTA will be effectively single track from CPF-Derby to CPF-AY or CPF-WL. But this shouldn't have a huge impact on MBTA's in-bound rush.

What is needed is a new interlocking and a right-hand cross-over at the west end of the Camp. The Camp runs from the west end of the West Wye along the south side of the main line (#2 track side) to just east the Nashua River bridge. This would allow the long auto and TOFC trains to get off the main line without requiring the back up moves east of CPF-AY. In addition, a new running track needs to be built between the wye switch at the east end of the yard and Harvard. The long auto and TOFC trains would then pull off the main line at the Nashua River interlocking, run down the Camp, around the West Wye and down the running track to Harvard. Set-offs would be made from the west end of the yard verses the east end and the main line would experience minimal interruption to crossings, passenger trains and even mainline and local freight trains. Trains to and from Worcester could also use the running track to have access to the East Wye that would avoid the local tracks in the yard and the TOFC tracks.

johnpbarlow wrote:Are these MBTA delays primarily a morning rush hour phenomenon, when 206/22K often arrive? If so,

Spread between am/pm weighted towards PM, hitting 7pm on the worst

CPF 363-good ideas there I wonder if any are included in the current Fitchburg improvement project?

The problems at the Willows may be related to the new equipment that has been installed there-maybe working out some bugs?

D3 dispatcher was having a bad day yesterday (12/27/13) as he was giving out "Rule 241's" all over the place for both freight and passenger trains around Ayer, along with the arrival of the grain train (which has to be split in two ),22k,EDPO,and a POED approaching from the Stony Brook all within a relatively short period.

A week or two ago I heard on my scanner POSE went into emergency during the pm rush hour between the Willows and west wye when the computer on the lead CSX unit gave some sort of error code that they couldn't seem to resolve. Numerous calls from train to D3 and CSX power desk were needed before the train got moving again.

I'm not a railroad operations person but it seems the D3 dispatcher has too much rail to cover.

D4 is supposedly coming back.

neman2 » Sat Dec 28, 2013 10:45 am
...it seems the D3 dispatcher has too much rail to cover.

The problem area covers between the Willows and Fitchburg, soon to be Wachusett, with its immediate concentration at Ayer, which to another non-railroad operations person -- me -- does not seem too much rail to cover. What is probably more on point is that the newer dispatchers are still learning their trade. There are confounding variables in the form of power reliability, sometimes T, sometimes NS, sometimes CSX, but more frequently PAR. There are other confounding variables in crossing moves involving the Freight Main and the Worcester Main, augmented by the problems involved in yarding 22K and the pigs on 206. It is impossible to hold long freights between Ayer and the Willows because of the number of grade crossings, which means that sometimes commuters get held.
If anything, D-2 is faced with more complexity. The dispatchers there have to deal with the issues of New Hampshire and Western Route commuter and Amtrak schedules, ongoing construction projects, and power and crew swaps in and around Lowell, as well as additional local freight activity.

jaymac wrote: There are other confounding variables in crossing moves involving the Freight Main and the Worcester Main, augmented by the problems involved in yarding 22K and the pigs on 206. It is impossible to hold long freights between Ayer and the Willows because of the number of grade crossings, which means that sometimes commuters get held.

Ok with this in mind, why doesn't PAR drop some change and I'm sure the state will sell it for cheap and buy additional land in Devens industrial zone, it's quasi state owned property and it would serve to help grow the schedules at Fitchburg and with the new Westminster layover yard and stations bring worked on, maybe even getting all the way back to Gardner or even Orange for some runs in the distant future.

My proposal is simple, take land adjacen to the current devens yard and expand the tracks or move it, provide a double track in from either direction off of the most southerly track. The existing junction at Ayer and one perhaps west near sculey road and going around to the west of Plow Shop pond. The problem with devens is they are bracketed in in the existing yard to either side meaning the yard would have to elongate significantly with many switching points or completely move south along the Worcester main. Both of these do not fix the need to deal with autoracks at Willows since Devens for all it's space, doesn't have the width needed for the lots along the existing ROW and going too far south puts it so close to South post.

In other much crazier and a less likely idea, PAR takes over the old Moore airfield which is also state owned (used by MSP for driving training). It's a massive area with the option to build a replacement autorack yard to replace Willows and the Worcester freight switching yard at Devens into one nice tidy package. No real nimby issues there since it's on a big hill and on federal/state land combo. There is already a branch right there so access via ROW exists for acess. The problem is access to the NH main and Worcester main. NH is easier since you can just take the northern most track from a siding to a freight only connection to the yard and the Fitchburg line.

So this leaves access to Worcester. Let's say we can get the approvals to do this from DEP and the Department of the Interior since some of the land is Federal preserves, curve the Worcester main to the west of Plow Shop pond as I proposed earlier and take it over the Fitchburg main on a bridge (avoiding future height issues) continue this along Macperhson road to the now new PAR yard at the old airfield.

Crazy ideas, highly unlikely, but potentially very profitable for PAR drastically increasing their most congested handoff point. I'm new to the area and don't know the precidence or history which comes with PAR and the MBTA and the existing yards, but if you could pull off either, it's an improvement with #2 being a massive one for all parties.

Good ideas, but PAR finds itself in an "interesting" situation in that it is caught in between NS and CSX and can't really afford to get either of them too upset by seeming to give one or the other a real or perceived advantage. The governing factor is money. As much as things have improved under Fink 2.0, there is still a cash-flow issue aggravated by decades of deferred and/or nonexistent maintenance. There is triaging going on, funded in part by other peoples' purses, but as the non-completion of track work for the Knowledge Corridor proved, there -- even with outside help -- is only so much PAR can digest within a given work window, and there is a surplus of demand and a lesser amount of resources.
There has been horse-trading already on the Fitchburg Extension -- service for Omnova, getting the Westminster layover so Fitchburg yard can be expanded by using the old layover area -- but the Commonwealth has funding limitations as well.
As far as extending passenger service west, that's in the doubtful category. MART was lead agency and caught some political heat for -- in effect -- abandoning the Fitchburg facility. If service should subsequently get pushed west to Gardner, that will call into question the wisdom of spending money so much at Wachusett and Westminster, so MART will probably not be supportive.
Additionally, the alinement from Wachusett to Gardner would not support passenger trains in excess of 50 mph, so the bus feeder from Gardner would actually provide quicker service from Gardner to Wachusett than a train could without massive investments. As far as extending service even further west, having ridden scheduled trains between Boston and Greenfield, I can testify -- junkyards excepted -- to the beauty of the ride. Whether there would ever be a ridership base is another matter.

jaymac wrote:Good ideas, but PAR finds itself in an "interesting" situation in that it is caught in between NS and CSX and can't really afford to get either of them too upset by seeming to give one or the other a real or perceived advantage.

Ok, make it a "regional" yard. Being off either line gives a decent access to CSX to the south and NS to the West. As for you other points, well put

tvachon wrote:Ok with this in mind, why doesn't PAR drop some change and I'm sure the state will sell it for cheap and buy additional land in Devens industrial zone, it's quasi state owned property and it would serve to help grow the schedules at Fitchburg and with the new Westminster layover yard and stations bring worked on, maybe even getting all the way back to Gardner or even Orange for some runs in the distant future.

My proposal is simple, take land adjacen to the current devens yard and expand the tracks or move it, provide a double track in from either direction off of the most southerly track. The existing junction at Ayer and one perhaps west near sculey road and going around to the west of Plow Shop pond. The problem with devens is they are bracketed in in the existing yard to either side meaning the yard would have to elongate significantly with many switching points or completely move south along the Worcester main. Both of these do not fix the need to deal with autoracks at Willows since Devens for all it's space, doesn't have the width needed for the lots along the existing ROW and going too far south puts it so close to South post.

What is frustrating is that when the U.S. Army closed Fort Devens in 1993, all of the land adjacent to the Hill Yard on both sides was just sitting doing nothing for several years. This was back before the Rock Tenn, Catalano Brothers and Quiet Logistics buildings were built. There was the old Warehouse 1400 Building the Army built and some small wooden buildings, but that was all that was there in 1993. All of these buildings were subsequently torn down by Mass Development through out the mid to latter parts of the 1990s. In those days, CP Rail was running a Chicago to Ayer TOFC train 261 and 262 off the D&H, with the containers from and to these trains off and on-loaded on the western side of the Hill Yard off of track 11. When NS came along several years later, the TOFC yard was shifted to the eastern side off the yard, with tracks 1-3 being adjusted physically to make room for the NS TOFC yard. Guilford had plenty of opportunities to purchase and build a big auto and container terminals on each side of the yard in those days but chose not to make the investment. What is known as "Harvard" could have been moved westward towards the Route 2 overpass with running tracks installed to each side of the yard and a 105 track through the middle of the yard to allow the CSX trains more flexibility to get through the yard between all of the auto, TOFC and Ayer local moves. Local switch tracks could have been built off of the 105 track also to handle all of the local switching in and around Ayer. With the addition of an interlocking on the western end of the Camp Track "e.g. "CPF-NR" at the Nashua River would allow trains from the west easy access to clear off the main line to keep everything moving along fluidly. The big thing with all of this was that there were no NIMBYs around, or crossings to tie up, and all of the switching could have been done on the western end of the yard verses the eastern end.

tvachon wrote:In other much crazier and a less likely idea, PAR takes over the old Moore airfield which is also state owned (used by MSP for driving training). It's a massive area with the option to build a replacement autorack yard to replace Willows and the Worcester freight switching yard at Devens into one nice tidy package. No real nimby issues there since it's on a big hill and on federal/state land combo. There is already a branch right there so access via ROW exists for acess. The problem is access to the NH main and Worcester main. NH is easier since you can just take the northern most track from a siding to a freight only connection to the yard and the Fitchburg line.

So this leaves access to Worcester. Let's say we can get the approvals to do this from DEP and the Department of the Interior since some of the land is Federal preserves, curve the Worcester main to the west of Plow Shop pond as I proposed earlier and take it over the Fitchburg main on a bridge (avoiding future height issues) continue this along Macperhson road to the now new PAR yard at the old airfield.

A huge expense, and probably impractical, maybe a diamond could be installed across the Fitchburg Route out of the yard to the Greenville Branch, but that would be difficult for the autos from the west that would require backup and run-around moves. The idea of using the air field is a good one though, too bad the Greenville branch did not have a wye facing to the west to make such a yard worthwhile. What is really needed is more access to yard tracks off of the main line that does not employ the use of hand-throw switches but rather power switches. Why didn't they put a new power switch at CPF-WL into the San-Vel auto yard on the #2 track side and install more through tracks so that auto trains could enter into the yard from the west and simply pull forward. Cars could also be set off on to lead tracks there without tying the main line up. Also, are you referring the "NH main" as the New Hampshire Route Main Line? Not sure that I understand what "NH main" is with reference to main lines around Ayer.

All of these improvements would have required vision, ambition and investment.

I am not going to read the long posts but in summary District 3 has too much territory as a cost cutting measure (District 4 is SUPPOSED to come back). The T is threatening to take over State Line to Wilmington Junction and Fitch to the Willows if things do not improve.

There are long term plans to make better use of the Camp / interlock the west end.