A drone view of MBTA Boston Engine Terminal and Readville

[JCitron]

The views are interesting and I hope this is helpful when creating engine terminals and small yards. For the most part, there is very little freight now in Boston except for a bit in Charlestown on the northside and Boston Sand and Gravel. The NIMBYs and real estate developers took care of that and drove the business out of the city. Where there was once an extensive yard on the northside, is now an industrial park and condominiums. Much of this occurred in the 1980s when Guilford took over and discouraged freight service in the area, closed the hump yard, and sold off the land for condos. Today, what little freight is brought to yards and facilities outside the city and trucked in.

Located near the BET, is the large carbarn and storage yard for the MBTA Green line light rail. The recent extension to Somerville and Medford starts here and this replaces the loop at Lechmere Square. A new concrete viaduct crosses between some old warehouses and continues on to the old Boston and Lowell ROW and runs along the commuter line to Lowell before it terminates in Somerville and Medford.

The Grand Junction Branch was once an extensive and busy branch that handled freight to various factories and warehouses in Cambridge. The line runs between Beacon Yard, or where it used to be located, on the former Boston and Albany (CSX Buffalo Line). With MIT taking over most of the area, the branch has been reduced to a single track and is used only to move equipment between North Station and South Station. In the drone view, we can see where there were once sidings and industrial leads that go nowhere.

Readville was once the New Haven's engine shops and today is used for repairs and storage for equipment on the southside. There are some commuter branches that radiate out of here including the Needham Branch and Fairmont Branch which runs out to Franklin, MA. This line used to continue to Hartford, CT as New Haven's Air Line. The line was torn up by the Penn Central in the early 1970s and is now a recreational trail. The Needham Branch was once part of the old Boston and Albany loop that ran through Newton. Today, the northern portion of the loop is the Riverside Line of the MBTA Green Line. This was done in the 1950s when the B&A sold the tracks and ROW to the MTA and the was known as the "High Speed Line" because new PCC trolleys ran at 45 mph on this stretch of track to Riverside.

 

[blueodessey]

The views are interesting and I hope this is helpful when creating engine terminals and small yards. For the most part, there is very little freight now in Boston except for a bit in Charlestown on the northside and Boston Sand and Gravel. The NIMBYs and real estate developers took care of that and drove the business out of the city. Where there was once an extensive yard on the northside, is now an industrial park and condominiums. Much of this occurred in the 1980s when Guilford took over and discouraged freight service in the area, closed the hump yard, and sold off the land for condos. Today, what little freight is brought to yards and facilities outside the city and trucked in.

Located near the BET, is the large carbarn and storage yard for the MBTA Green line light rail. The recent extension to Somerville and Medford starts here and this replaces the loop at Lechmere Square. A new concrete viaduct crosses between some old warehouses and continues on to the old Boston and Lowell ROW and runs along the commuter line to Lowell before it terminates in Somerville and Medford.

The Grand Junction Branch was once an extensive and busy branch that handled freight to various factories and warehouses in Cambridge. The line runs between Beacon Yard, or where it used to be located, on the former Boston and Albany (CSX Buffalo Line). With MIT taking over most of the area, the branch has been reduced to a single track and is used only to move equipment between North Station and South Station. In the drone view, we can see where there were once sidings and industrial leads that go nowhere.

Readville was once the New Haven's engine shops and today is used for repairs and storage for equipment on the southside. There are some commuter branches that radiate out of here including the Needham Branch and Fairmont Branch which runs out to Franklin, MA. This line used to continue to Hartford, CT as New Haven's Air Line. The line was torn up by the Penn Central in the early 1970s and is now a recreational trail. The Needham Branch was once part of the old Boston and Albany loop that ran through Newton. Today, the northern portion of the loop is the Riverside Line of the MBTA Green Line. This was done in the 1950s when the B&A sold the tracks and ROW to the MTA and the was known as the "High Speed Line" because new PCC trolleys ran at 45 mph on this stretch of track to Riverside.

Great Video Big John, I would say in California, I see the ill effects of Nimby's. To the detriment of our freeways with Semis Truck and trailers taking not two lanes, but 4 lanes of Traffic either way. oh and did I tell you, we have the worst traffic in the nation. And Oh this is good one, we also sport a High Speed train corridor from Somewhere to no where, infrastructure just about complete, hee hee, except not one set of Tracks or Running Trains installed. Yup we are doing great in California!

California High-Speed Rail Progress After 10 Years: Green Sections Are Open For Passengers - Brilliant Maps

The map above shows the progress on California's High-Speed rail project after nearly a decade of construction. At the time of writing only the green sections are ready for passenger use (as of June 2024).

brilliantmaps.com

Oh I am sorry John, we call this progress here in the West Coast.

Breaks my heart and really hurts my Taxes too.

 

[Forester1]

Semis Truck and trailers taking not two lanes, but 4 lanes of Traffic either way

Sad that even here in Idaho and Nebraska and down south on I40 the freeways have turned into just a series of being behind trucks passing trucks. I used to like driving the freeways, but I sure would like to see about half or more of those trucks load onto some trains instead. I was thinking we needed one more lane on the freeways so that the trucks could have two and we could have one, but it sounds like even that doesn't work in California. Thanks for the video, John!

 

[JCitron]

Great Video Big John, I would say in California, I see the ill effects of Nimby's. To the detriment of our freeways with Semis Truck and trailers taking not two lanes, but 4 lanes of Traffic either way. oh and did I tell you, we have the worst traffic in the nation. And Oh this is good one, we also sport a High Speed train corridor from Somewhere to no where, infrastructure just about complete, hee hee, except not one set of Tracks or Running Trains installed. Yup we are doing great in California!

California High-Speed Rail Progress After 10 Years: Green Sections Are Open For Passengers - Brilliant Maps

The map above shows the progress on California's High-Speed rail project after nearly a decade of construction. At the time of writing only the green sections are ready for passenger use (as of June 2024).

brilliantmaps.com

Oh I am sorry John, we call this progress here in the West Coast.

Breaks my heart and really hurts my Taxes too.

To be fair, the California High Speed Project was a pawn in the political game with one party using it as a way to kill future train projects by curtailing funding to a point that it would fail and that's pretty much where it is today. Similarly, here in Boston the infamous Big Dig put the MBTA into a huge debt. Our governor Mitt Romney took the $14 Billion Big Dig debt and pushed it off on to the MBTA budget, burying them to a point where they had to layoff workers, raise fares, and cut services to pay off the unpayable debt. Because of the debt, this was used as a way to curtail funding from future projects or upgrades to equipment which is sadly needed.

Our oldest locomotives are now 46 years-old. The old F40 PHs were bought in 1980 and a bit afterwards. While they've gone through some updates and repaints, they're still old and inefficient. The "T" is looking at new equipment now to hopefully replace it in the future with some battery electric on the shorter branches such as the Fairmount line and full electric on the South Shore. Unfortunately, the North Shore where I live will still have the old junk like it is now. The wealthier South Shore always gets the brand new equipment while we get stuck with the old clunkers. Our current governor along with the head of the "T" have worked on removing that debt from the budget and it's now back on a bond where it was in the first place. This has allowed the "T" to replace and upgrade equipment as well as extend some lines on the South Shore of course.

I was told that Massachusetts had the claim as having the worst drivers and traffic. I suppose California has this at a larger scale. We too have some really stupid highways that shouldn't have been built and other that were built where there used to be rail. The well known I-90, aka the Mass. Pike, takes up the space where two or more tracks once existed as it runs into Boston. This was done in the 1950s when it was put in. In some places in Central Mass, lines were ripped up.

This same damage was done in New Jersey when I-80 was built. This highway destroyed important sections of the former Erie Lackawanna mainline causing Conrail to give up the route as a through line. The rails were reduced to single track in some places and in others abandoned forcing the rail companies to find alternatives. The road is horrible to drive on too. It's a four-lane highway clogged with trucks in both lanes pacing each other instead of keeping right except for passing like they're supposed to. It gets worse as you head across Pennsylvania and into Ohio with the hills. The trucks slow down to a crawl as they climb the steep hills in the Allegheny Mountains with both lanes clogged as they climb.

Sadly, NIMBYs here have ruined a lot of projects including the Greenbush line down to Scituate. Harwich MA residents put up such a stink that the budget ran way over and was delayed for years. In addition to the screaming and yelling about the "noise and smell", they demanded the rail line be tunneled under the town center instead of using the existing tracks put in during the 1840s. The delays and cost aside, they also demanded extra trains and frequent service, but no one uses the trains. Most of them are double-decker but run empty most of the time with only a few passengers. Since this fiasco, a state law was passed that said that the NIMBYs can no longer do this with projects.

It wasn't only this project, they killed a couple of useful expansions and a reopening of two light rail lines closed in the mid-80s during a "cost cutting move". The old Watertown A-line service was bussified and remained that way until the bus-centric "T" management at the time ripped up the tracks. Similarly, the Arborway line to Forest Hills was removed. The residents claimed tha the "trolleys" will make noise and tie up traffic, even though, they ran the same route for 90 years prior to closing. They came out with their lawyers and threatended to sue the "T". Again, the management used this as an excuse to rip up the tracks even though we paid for extensive signal and wire upgrades a few months before the closing.

 

[JCitron]

@Forester1

I've been on I-40 from Little Rock across Nebraska chasing storms. That road is horrible with the trucks bottlenecking the road. It's flat on the western parts across OK and NE but not so much in Arkansas. Like I-80, and I-90, this interstate doesn't have the rules in place to prevent trucks from clogging the left lane. To make matters worse, these highways are breaking apart due to the double trailers banging along on the concrete roadway and bridge expansion joints.

There's nothing like getting stuck behind a moving roadblock. It's sad how much is put into a highway system that's paid for by the railroad companies who have to not only pay for the competition through high taxes but also, pay for their own infrastructure upkeep, equipment, and employees. Alfred Perlman, the visionary president of the NYC, said the same thing in the 1950s. It's sad how this mindset is still here today even with the cost of fuel and the over burdened highway system.