Here's another MBTA engine terminal view. This time it's located on the southside in Readville. This yard is small and makes a perfect candidate for either freight or passenger service on our routes. The trackwork is visible too and it gives us a nice view of how to layout the yard tracks and service area - an issue we all have. The engine storage tracks also have some nice concrete paths between them for the workers to walk on.
What I found interesting is how much ballast the MBTA uses. I've been greening up my large route because I thought I had too much ballast everywhere until I saw these videos and other videos. The MBTA's ROWs are all heavily ballasted including those out in the countryside with more ballast dumped all over large junctions. Related to this is the lack of plants and shrubs close to the tracks. Like my routes, they don't have a lot of foliage near the tracks. This definitely makes route building a lot easier.
In another video I saw, and I need to find again and post here, is the MBTA commuter storage yard located in Rochester, MA with black tarmac covering the ground instead of ballast except between the rails and ties. This as an interesting sight and gives me some ideas on what to do with that such as retexturing some wide YARN roads without traffic with black ballast or TUME parking-lot textures. The YARN roads are nice and thick and will match up nicely with the track height and allow for buried rails where they need to be.
